The  ORDEAL 

Charles  EabertC      lock 


THE  ORDEAL 

A  MOUNTAIN  ROMANCE  OP  TENNESSEE 


The  Raid 
of  the  Guerilla 

By 
CHARLES  EGBERT  CRADDOCK 

Vigorous  and  Spirited  Tales  of  the 

Great     Smoky   Mountains 

and  the  Mississippi  Delta 

With  illustrations  by  W.  Herbert  Dunton 

and  Remington  Schuyler.      I2mo* 

Decorated  cloth,     $1.25  net. 

J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT  CO. 

PUBLISHERS  PHILADELPHIA 


A    SWIFT,  ERECT    FIGURE   STEPPED   INTO    THE   MIDDLE   OF   THE   ROAD 

Page  101 


ree  ry 

THE    ORDEAL 


A  MOUNTAIN  ROMANCE  OF 
TENNESSEE 


BY 

CHARLES  EGBERT  CRADDOCK 


AUTHOR   OF 


1  THE   RAID   OF    THE   GUERILLA,"  "  THE    PROPHET   OF   THE   GREAT 
SMOKY  MOUNTAINS,"    "  THE   FAIR   MISSISSIPPIAN,"  ETC. 


WITH  A  FRONTISPIECE  IN  COLOR  BY 

DOUGLAS  DUER 


PHILADELPHIA  &  LONDON 
J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT  COMPANY 

1912 


COPYRIGHT,    1911,  BY   J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT   COMPANY 
COPYRIGHT,    1912,  BY  J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT  COMPANY 


PUBLISHED   SEPTEMBER,   1912 


PRINTED   BY  J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT  COMPANY 

AT  THE  WASHINGTON  SQUARE  PRESS 

PHILADELPHIA,    U.S.A. 


THE  ORDEAL 

L 

NOWHERE  could  the  idea  of  peace  be  more 
serenely,  more  majestically,  expressed. 
The  lofty  purple  mountains  limited  the 
horizon,  and  in  their  multitude  and  impos 
ing  symmetry  bespoke  the  vast  intentions 
of  beneficent  creation.  The  valley,  gloom 
ing  low,  harbored  all  the  shadows.  The  air 
was  still,  the  sky  as  pellucid  as  crystal,  and 
where  a  crag  projected  boldly  from  the 
forests,  the  growths  of  balsam  fir  extending 
almost  to  the  brink,  it  seemed  as  if  the 
myriad  fibres  of  the  summit-line  of  foliage 
might  be  counted,  so  finely  drawn,  so  in 
dividual,  was  each  against  the  azure.  Below 
the  boughs  the  road  swept  along  the  crest 
of  the  crag  and  thence  curved  inward,  and 

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M679553 


THE    ORDEAL 


one  surveying  the  scene  from  the  windows 
of  a  bungalow  at  no  great  distance  could 
look  straight  beyond  the  point  of  the  preci 
pice  and  into  the  heart  of  the  sunset,  still 
aflare  about  the  west. 

But  the  realization  of  solitude  was  poig 
nant  and  might  well  foster  fear.  It  was 
too  wild  a  country,  many  people  said,  for 
quasi-strangers,  and  the  Briscoes  were  not 
justified  in  lingering  so  long  at  their  sum 
mer  cottage  here  in  the  Great  Smoky 
Mountains  after  the  hotel  of  the  neighbor 
ing  springs  was  closed  for  the  season,  and 
its  guests  and  employees  all  vanished  town- 
ward.  Hitherto,  however,  the  Briscoes  had 
flouted  the  suggestion,  protesting  that  this 
and  not  the  spring  was  the  "  sweet  o'  the 
year."  The  autumn  always  found  the  fires 
flaring  on  the  cosy  hearths  of  their  pretty 
bungalow,  and  they  were  wont  to  gaze  en 
tranced  on  the  chromatic  pageantry  of  the 

8 


THE    ORDEAL 


forests  as  the  season  waned.  Presently  the 
Indian  summer  would  steal  upon  them  un 
aware,  with  its  wild  sweet  airs,  the  burnished 
glamours  of  its  soft  red  sun,  its  dreamy, 
poetic,  amethystine  haze.  Now,  too,  came 
the  crowning  opportunity  of  sylvan  sport. 
There  were  deer  to  stalk  and  to  course  with 
horses,  hounds,  and  horns ;  wild  turkeys  and 
mountain  grouse  to  try  the  aim  and  tax  the 
pedestrianism  of  the  hunter;  bears  had  not 
yet  gone  into  winter  quarters,  and  were 
mast-fed  and  fat;  even  a  shot  at  a  wolf, 
slyly  marauding,  was  no  infrequent  incident, 
and  Edward  Briscoe  thought  the  place  in 
autumn  an  elysium  for  a  sportsman. 

He  had  to-day  the  prospect  of  a  comrade 
in  these  delights  from  his  own  city  home 
and  of  his  own  rank  in  life,  despite  the 
desertion  of  the  big  frame  hotel  on  the  bluff, 
but  it  was  not  the  enticement  of  rod  and 
gun  that  had  brought  Julian  Bayne  sud- 

9 


THE    ORDEAL 


denly  and  unexpectedly  to  the  mountains. 
His  host  and  cousin,  Edward  Briscoe,  was 
his  co-executor  in  a  kinsman's  will,  and  in 
the  settlement  of  the  estate  the  policy  of 
granting  a  certain  power  of  attorney  neces 
sitated  a  conference  more  confidential  than 
could  be  safely  compassed  by  correspond 
ence.  They  discussed  this  as  they  sat  in 
the  spacious  reception  hall,  and  had  Bayne 
been  less  preoccupied  he  must  have  noticed 
at  once  the  embarrassment,  nay,  the  look 
of  absolute  dismay,  with  which  Briscoe  had 
risen  to  receive  him,  when,  unannounced, 
he  appeared  in  the  doorway  as  abruptly  as 
if  he  had  fallen  from  the  clouds.  As  it 
was,  the  brief  colloquy  on  the  business  in 
terests  that  had  brought  him  hither  was 
almost  concluded  before  the  problem  of  his 
host's  manner  began  to  intrude  on  Bayne's 
consciousness.  Briscoe's  broad,  florid, 
genial  countenance  expressed  an  unaccount- 

10 


THE    ORDEAL 


able  disquietude;  a  flush  had  mounted  to 
his  forehead,  which  was  elongated  by  his 
premature  baldness;  he  was  pulling  ner- 
ously  at  his  long  dark  mustache,  which 
matched  in  tint  the  silky  fringe  of  hair 
encircling  his  polished  crown;  his  eyes, 
round  and  brown,  and  glossy  as  a  chestnut, 
wandered  inattentively.  He  did  not  con 
tend  on  small  points  of  feasibility,  according 
to  his  wont — for  he  was  of  an  argumentative 
habit  of  mind — in  fact,  his  acquiescence  in 
every  detail  proposed  was  so  complete  and 
so  unexpected  that  Bayne,  with  half  his 
urgency  unsaid,  came  to  the  end  of  his 
proposition  with  as  precipitate  an  effect  as 
if  he  had  stumbled  upon  it  in  the  dark. 

"Well,  that's  agreed,  is  it?  Easily 
settled!  I  really  need  niot  have  come — 
though" — with  a  complaisant  after 
thought — "  it  is  a  pleasure  to  look  in  on 
you  in  your  woodland  haunts." 

11 


THE    ORDEAL 


Briscoe  suddenly  leaned  forward  from 
his  easy  chair  and  laid  his  hand  on  his 
cousin's  knee. 

"  Julian,"  he  said  anxiously,  "  I  hate  to 
tell  you — but  my  wife  has  got  that  woman 
here." 

Bayne  stared,  blankly  unresponsive. 
*  What  woman?  "  he  asked  wonderingly. 

"  Mrs.  Royston,  you  know — Lillian 
Marable,  that  was." 

Bayne  looked  as  if  suddenly  checked  in 
headlong  speed — startled,  almost  stunned. 
The  blood  rushed  in  a  tumultuous  flood  to 
his  thin  cheeks,  then  receded,  leaving  his 
face  mottled  red  and  white.  His  steel-gray 
eyes  suddenly  glowed  like  hot  metal.  There 
was  a  moment  of  tense  silence ;  then  he  said, 
his  voice  steady  and  controlled,  his  manner 
stiff  but  not  without  dignity,  "  Pray  do  not 
allow  that  to  discompose  you.  She  is  noth 
ing  to  me." 

12 


THE    ORDEAL 


"  I  know — I  know,  of  course.  I  would 
not  have  mentioned  it,  but  I  feared  an  un 
expected  meeting  might  embarrass  you,  here 
in  this  seclusion  where  you  cannot  avoid 
each  other." 

"  You  need  not  have  troubled  yourself," 
Bayne  protested,  looking  fixedly  at  his 
cigar  as  he  touched  off  the  long  ash  with 
a  delicate  fillip. 

There  was  a  great  contrast  in  the  aspect 
of  the  two,  which  accorded  with  their  ob 
vious  differences  of  mind  and  temperament. 
Briscoe,  a  man  of  wealth  and  leisure,  portly 
and  rubicund,  was  in  hunting  togs,  with 
gaiters,  knickers,  jacket,  and  negligee  shirt, 
while  Bayne,  with  no  trace  of  the  disorder 
incident  to  a  long  journey  by  primitive 
methods  of  transportation,  was  as  elabo 
rately  groomed  and  as  accurately  costumed 
in  his  trig,  dark  brown,  business  suit  as  if 
he  had  just  stepped  from  the  elevator  of  the 

13 


THE    ORDEAL 


sky-scraper  where  his  offices  as  a  broker 
wiere  located.  His  manner  distinctly  in 
timated  that  the  subject  was  dismissed,  but 
Briscoe,  who  had  as  kindly  a  heart  as  ever 
beat,  was  nothing  of  a  diplomat.  He  set 
forth  heavily  to  justify  himself. 

"  You  see — knowing  that  you  were  once 
in  love  with  her 

"  Oh,  no,  my  dear  fellow,"  Bayne  hastily 
interrupted;  "I  never  loved  her.  I  loved 
only  my  own  dream  of  one  fair  wroman.  It 
did  not  come  true,  that's  all." 

Briscoe  seemed  somewhat  reassured,  but 
in  the  pervasive  awkwardness  of  his  plight 
as  host  of  both  parties  he  could  not  quit  the 
subject.  "  Just  so,"  he  acquiesced  gladly; 
"  a  mere  dream — and  a  dream  can  make  no 
sensible  man  unhappy." 

Bayne  laughed  with  a  tense  note  of  satire. 
"  Well,  the  awakening  was  a  rude  jar,  I 
must  confess." 

14 


THE    ORDEAL 


For  it  had  been  no  ordinary  termination 
of  an  unhappy  love  affair.  It  befell  within 
a  fortnight  of  the  date  set  for  the  prospec 
tive  marriage.  All  the  details  of  publicity 
were  complete:  the  cards  were  out;  the 
"  society  columns "  of  the  local  journals 
had  revelled  in  the  plans  of  the  event;  the 
gold  and  silver  shower  of  the  bridal  presents 
was  raining  down.  The  determining  cause 
of  the  catastrophe  was  never  quite  clear  to 
the  community — whether  a  lover's  quarrel 
with  disproportionate  consequences,  by 
reason  of  the  marplot  activities  of  a  mer 
cenary  relative  of  the  lady's,  advocating  the 
interests  of  a  sudden  opportunity  of  greater 
wealth  and  station;  or  her  foolish  revenge 
for  a  fancied  slight;  or  simply  her  sheer 
inconstancy  in  a  change  of  mind  and  heart. 
At  all  events,  without  a  word  of  warning, 
Julian  Bayne,  five  years  before,  had  the 
unique  experience  of  reading  in  a  morning 

15 


THE    ORDEAL 


paper  the  notice  of  the  marriage  of  Ins 
promised  bride  to  another  man,  and  of  sus 
taining  with  what  grace  he  might  the  role 
of  a  jilted  lover  amidst  the  ruins  of  his 
nuptial  preparations. 

In  the  estimation  of  the  judicious,  he  had 
made  a  happy  escape,  for  the  cruelty  in 
volved  in  the  lady's  methods  and  the  care 
less  flout  of  the  opinion  of  the  sober,  decor 
ous  world  were  not  indicia  of  worthy  traits; 
but  he  was  of  sensitive  fibre,  and  tingled 
and  winced  with  the  consciousness  of  the 
cheap  gibe  and  the  finger  of  scorn.  He 
often  said  to  himself  then,  however,  as  now 
to  the  friend  of  his  inmost  thought,  "  I 
would  not  be  bound  to  a  woman  capable 
of  such  treachery  for " 

Words  failed  him,  inadequate,  though  he 
spoke  calmly.  His  face  had  resumed  its 
habitual  warm  pallor.  His  clear-cut  fea 
tures,  something  too  sharply  defined  for 
absolute  regularity,  with  the  unassertive 

16 


THE    ORDEAL 


effect  of  his  straight  auburn  hair,  his  de 
liberate,  contemplative  glance,  his  reserved, 
high-bred  look,  the  quiet  decorum  of  his 
manner,  were  not  suggestive  of  the  tumult 
of  his  inner  consciousness,  and  the  unre- 
sponsiveness  of  his  aspect  baffled  Briscoe. 
With  some  inapposite,  impulsive  warmth 
he  protested:  "  But  she  has  had  bitter  cause 
for  repentance,  Julian.  Royston  was  a 
brute.  The  only  decent  thing  he  ever  did 
was  dying!  She  has  been  an  awfully  un 
happy  woman.  I  know  you  will  be  sorry 
for  that." 

"  Neither  glad  nor  sorry.  She  is  nothing 
to  me.  Not  because  she  dealt  me  a  blow 
after  a  very  unfair  fashion,  but  because  she 
is  nothing  in  herself  that  I  could  really  care 
for.  She  has  no  delicate  sensibilities,  no 
fine  perceptions;  she  is  incapable  of  con 
stancy.  Don't  you  understand?  She  has 
no  capacity  to  feel." 

Briscoe  had  a  look  of  extenuating  dis- 

2  17 


THE    ORDEAL 


tress — a  sentiment  of  loyalty  to  his  fair 
guest.  "  Oh,  well,  now,  she  is  devoted  to 
her  child — a  most  loving  mother." 

"  Certainly,  she  may  grow  in  grace — let 
us  hope  that  she  will !  And  now  suppose  we 
talk  a  little  about  that  wonderful  maga 
zine  shot-gun  you  have  so  often  offered  to 
lend  me.  This  is  my  chance  to  prove 
its  values — the  only  time  in  the  last  five 
years  that  I  could  spare  a  week  from  the 
office." 

He  rose  and  turned  with  his  easy,  lithe 
grace  towards  the  gun-rack,  but  Briscoe  sat 
still  in  pondering  dismay.  For  it  was 
obvious  that  Julian  Bayne  had  no  intention 
of  soon  relaxing  the  tension  of  the  situa 
tion  by  the  elimination  of  the  presence  of 
the  jilted  lover.  Pride,  indeed,  forbade  his 
flight.  His  self-respect  clamored  for  recog 
nition.  There  was  no  cause  for  humiliation 
in  his  consciousness,  and  he  could  not  con 
sent  to  abase  himself  before  the  untoward 

18 


THE    ORDEAL 


and  discordant  facts.  He  did  not  disguise 
from  himself,  however,  that,  if  he  might 
have  chosen  earlier,  he  would  have  avoided 
the  ordeal  of  the  meeting,  from  which  he 
shrank  in  anticipation.  Already  he  was 
poignantly  conscious  of  the  heavy  draughts 
it  made  on  his  composure,  and  he  raged  in 
wardly  to  note  how  his  fingers  trembled  as 
he  stood  before  the  rack  of  guns,  now  and 
again  a  weapon  in  his  hands,  feigning  an  in 
terest  in  examining  the  construction  first  of 
one  and  then  of  another. 

The  entire  place  suggested  a  devotion  to 
sport  and  whole-siouled  hospitality.  The 
vast  spread  of  the  autumnal  landscape,  in 
wonderful  clarity  and  depth  of  tint,  was 
visible  through  the  large,  open  front  doors. 
There  was  an  effort  to  maintain  in  this 
apartment  the  aspect  in  some  sort  of  a  lodge 
in  the  wilderness;  the  splendid  antlers  over 
the  mantel-piece,  beneath  which,  in  a  deep 

19 


THE    ORDEAL 


stone  chimney-place,  a  fire  of  logs  smould 
ered;  the  golden  eagle,  triumph  of  taxi 
dermy,  poising  his  wings  full-spread  above 
the  landing  of  the  somewhat  massive  stair 
case  ;  the  rack  of  weapons — rifles,  shot-guns, 
hunting-knives;  the  game-bags;  the  decora 
tion  of  the  walls,  showing  the  mask  and  brush 
of  many  a  fox,  and  the  iridescent  wings  of 
scores  of  wild-fowl ;  the  rugs  scattered  about 
made  of  the  pelts  of  wolves,  catamounts,  and 
bears  of  the  region — all  served  to  con 
tribute  to  the  sylvan  effect.  But  the  glister 
of  the  hardwood  floor,  waxed  and  polished; 
the  luxury  of  the  easy  chairs  and  sofas; 
the  centre-table  strewn  with  magazines  and 
papers,  beneath  a  large  lamp  of  rare  and 
rich  ware;  the  delicate  aroma  of  expensive 
cigars,  were  of  negative,  if  not  discordant, 
suggestion,  and  bespoke  the  more  sophisti 
cated  proclivities  and  training  of  the  owner. 

In    the    interval    of    awkward    silence, 
20 


THE    ORDEAL 


Briscoe  remained  motionless  in  his  easy 
chair,  a  rueful  reflectiveness  on  his  genial 
face  incongruous  with  its  habitual  expres 
sion.  When  a  sudden  disconcerted  intent- 
ness  developed  upon  it,  Bayne,  every  in 
stinct  on  the  alert,  took  instant  heed  of  the 
change.  The  obvious  accession  of  dismay 
betokened  the  increasing  acuteness  of  the 
crisis,  and  Briscoe's  attitude,  as  of  helpless 
paralysis,  stricken  as  it  were  into  stone 
as  he  gazed  toward  the  door,  heralded  an 
approach. 

There  were  light  footfalls  on  the  veranda, 
a  sudden  shadow  at  the  door.  The  next 
moment  two  ladies  were  entering,  their 
hands  full  of  autumn  leaves,  trophies  of 
their  long  walk.  Bayne,  summoning  to  his 
aid  all  the  conservative  influences  of  pride 
and  self-respect,  was  able  to  maintain  an 
aspect  of  grave  composure  as,  fully  warned, 
he  turned  to  meet  them.  Nevertheless,  the 

21 


THE    ORDEAL 


element  of  surprise  to  the  new-comers 
rendered  it  an  awkward  moment  to  all  the 
group.  Mrs.  Briscoe,  considerably  in  ad 
vance  of  her  guest,  paled  at  the  sight  of  him, 
and,  silent  and  visibly  shocked,  paused  as 
abruptly  as  if  she  beheld  a  ghost.  It  was  a 
most  uncharacteristic  reception,  for  she  was 
of  a  gracious  and  engaging  personality  and 
a  stately  type  of  beauty.  She  was  tall  and 
graceful,  about  thirty  years  of  age,  in  full 
bloom,  so  to  speak,  extremely  fair,  the 
delicacy  of  her  complexion  enhanced  by  the 
contrast  with  her  dark  hair  worn  en 
pompadour.  Her  gown  of  dark  red  cloth, 
elaborately  braided  and  with  narrow  bor 
ders  of  otter  fur,  had  a  rich  depth  of 
color  which  accorded  with  her  sumptuous 
endowments. 

The  role  of  cordial  hostess  she  was  wont 
to  play  with  especial  acceptability,  but  now 
she  had  lost  its  every  line,  its  most  trivial 

22 


THE    ORDEAL 


patter.  She  said  not  one  word  as  Bayne 
clasped  her  hand  with  the  conventional 
greeting,  but  only  looked  at  him  with  her 
hazel  eyes  at  once  remonstrant,  pleading, 
compassionate. 

The  moment  of  vantage,  short  as  it  was, 
afforded  by  the  precedence  of  her  hostess  in 
the  matter  of  salutation,  gave  Mrs.  Royston 
the  opportunity  to  catch  her  breath  and  find 
her  voice.  She  had  not  seen  this  man  since, 
five  years  ago,  he  had  left  her  home  her 
expectant  bridegroom.  But  beyond  a 
fluctuating  flush  in  her  fair  cheek,  a  dila 
tion  of  her  blue  eyes,  a  flutter  of  those  eye 
lids  which  he  had  always  esteemed  a  special 
point  of  her  beauty,  being  so  smooth,  so 
full,  so  darkly  lashed,  she  conserved  an 
ostensible  calm,  although  she  felt  the  glance 
of  his  eye  as  sensitively  as  red  hot  steel. 
But  he — as  he  dropped  the  hand  of  his 
hostess  and  advanced  toward  her  guest — 

23 


THE    ORDEAL 


in  one  moment  his  fictitious  composure  de 
serted  him.  For  this  was  not  the  widow  in 
weeds  whom  he  had  expected  to  see,  not 
the  woman  of  whom  he  had  trained  himself 
to  think,  when  he  must  needs  think  of  her 
at  all,  as  another  man's  wife.  This  was  his 
own  fair  Past,  the  unfulfilled  promise  of 
his  future,  the  girl  he  had  adored,  the  ideal 
wife  whom  he  had  worshipped  in  his 
cherished  dreams!  Just  as  always  hereto 
fore,  she  stood  now,  so  fresh,  so  fair,  so 
candid-seeming,  wearing  her  white  serge 
gown  with  her  usual  distinction,  a  spray  of 
golden-rod  fastened  in  her  mass  of  yellow 
hair  that  glowed  with  a  sheen  of  differing 
gold.  How  had  time  spared  her!  How 
had  griefs  left  her  scathless!  It  was  an 
effort  to  reflect  that  two  years  and  more 
had  elapsed  since  he  had  read  the  obituary 
of  Archibald  Royston,  with  scornful  amuse 
ment  to  mark  the  grotesque  lie  to  the  living 
in  the  fulsome  tribute  to  the  dead. 

24 


THE    ORDEAL 


In  some  sort,  Bayne  was  prepared  for 
change,  for  the  new  identity  that  the  strange 
falling  out  of  events  betokened.  He  had 
never  realized  her,  he  had  never  divined 
her  character,  he  would  have  said.  She  was 
now,  as  she  had  always  been,  an  absolute 
stranger.  But  this  little  hand — ah,  he  knew 
it  well!  How  often  it  had  lain  in  his  clasp, 
and  once  more  every  fibre  thrilled  at  its 
touch.  With  all  his  resolution,  he  could  not 
restrain  the  flush  that  mounted  to  his  brow, 
the  responsive  quiver  in  his  voice  as  he  mur 
mured  her  name,  the  name  of  Archibald 
Royston's  wife,  so  repugnant  to  his  lips. 
He  was  in  a  state  of  revolt  against  himself, 
his  self-betrayal,  to  realize  that  she  and  the 
two  Briscoes  Kjould  not  fail  to  mark  his 
confusion,  attributing  his  emotion  to  whatso 
ever  cause  they  would.  Indeed,  in  the 
genial  altruism  of  host,  Briscoe  had  suc 
ceeded  in  breaking  from  the  thrall  of  em 
barrassment  to  shield  and  save  the  situation. 

25 


THE    ORDEAL 


"Why,  here  is  Archie!"  he  exclaimed 
resonantly.  "  How  are  you,  old  man? " 
His  clear  tones  were  vibrant  with  dispro 
portionate  elation  at  the  prospect  of  a 
diversion  of  the  painful  interest  of  the 
scene. 

For  at  the  moment  a  fine  blond  boy  of 
three  years  burst  in  at  the  rear  door  of 
the  apartment  and  came  running  to  meet 
Mrs.  Royston,  just  apprised,  doubtless,  of 
her  return  from  her  afternoon  stroll.  He 
looked  very  fresh  in  his  white  linen  dress, 
his  red  leather  belt,  and  twinkling  red  shoes. 
With  the  independent  nonchalance  of  child 
hood,  he  took  no  note  of  the  outstretched 
arms  and  blandishing  smile  of  Mr.  Briscoe, 
who  sought  to  intercept  him,  but  made 
directly  toward  his  mother.  His  gleaming 
reflection  sped  along  in  the  polished,  mirror 
ing  floor,  but  all  at  once  both  semblance 
and  substance  paused.  With  a  sudden 

26 


THE    ORDEAL 


thought  the  child  put  his  dimpled  hands  over 
his  smiling  pink  face,  while  his  blue  eyes 
danced  merrily  between  the  tips  of  his 
fingers.  Then  he  advanced  again,  lunging 
slowly  along,  uttering  the  while  a  menacing 
"Mew!  Mew!  Mew!" 

His  mother  had  no  heart  for  his  fun. 
She  could  scarcely  summon  the  strength  and 
attention  requisite  for  this  fantastic  infantile 
foolery  when  all  her  capacities  were  enlisted 
to  support  her  dignity  in  the  presence  of  this 
man,  necessarily  inimical,  censorious,  criti 
cal,  who  had  once  meant  so  much  in  her 
life.  But  she  could  not  rebuff  the  baby! 
She  would  not  humble  his  spirit !  She  must 
enter  into  his  jest,  whatever  the  effort 
cost  her. 

It  was  poor  acting  certainly.  She 
affected  fright,  as  the  child  expected.  She 
cowered  dismayed.  "  Oh,  oh!"  she  cried, 
watching  his  erratic  approach.  '  What  is 

27 


THE    ORDEAL 


that?  "  She  pretended  flight,  but  sank  into 
a  chair,  apparently  overpowered.  She 
gazed  down  at  the  child  with  the  lifted 
hands  of  horror  as  he  clasped  the  folds  of  her 
gown,  his  eyes  shining  with  fun,  his  teeth 
glittering  between  his  red  lips,  his  laughter 
rippling  with  delight.  "  Me  scared  oo,' 
mamma,"  he  squealed  ecstatically.  "  Oo 
didn't  know  what  me  was.  Oo  t'ought  me 
was  a  great  big  bear." 

Whereupon  she  looked  down  at  him  with 
amazed  recognition.  "Is  it  you,  Archie? 
Dear  me,  I  thought  it  was  a  great  big  bear." 

"  Mew!  Mew!  Mew!  "  he  repeated  in  joy. 

"  Why,  Archie,  old  man,  bears  don't 
mew!"  cried  the  genial  Briscoe,  recovering 
his  equanimity.  "  Bears  growl — didn't  you 
know  that?" 

He  straightway  began  to  teach  the  little 
fellow  a  very  noisy  and  truculent  vocaliza 
tion  of  the  ursine  type,  which  Archie,  who 

28 


THE    ORDEAL 


was  a  great  favorite  with  his  host,  eagerly 
imitated,  Briscoe  appearing  throughout  the 
duet  at  the  pitiable  disadvantage  of  the 
adult  imbecile  disporting  himself  in  infantile 
wise. 

The  tumult  of  the  child's  entrance  had 
the  effect  of  relaxing  for  Briscoe  the  ten 
sion  of  the  situation,  but  when  Archie's 
nurse  appeared  at  the  door  and  he  ran  away 
at  her  summons,  the  host  looked  apprehen 
sively  about  the  circle  as  the  party  ranged 
themselves  around  the  fire,  its  glow  begin 
ning  to  be  welcome  in  the  increasing  chill 
of  the  evening.  Ordinarily,  this  was  a 
household  of  hilarious  temperament.  Life 
had  been  good  to  the  Briscoes,  and  they 
loved  it.  They  were  fond  of  rich  viands,  old 
wines,  genial  talk,  good  stories,  practical 
jests,  music,  and  sport;  the  wife  herself 
being  more  than  a  fair  shot,  a  capital  whip, 
and  a  famous  horsewoman.  Even  when 

29 


THE    ORDEAL 


there  was  no  stranger  within  the  gates,  the 
fires  would  flare  merrily  till  midnight,  the 
old  songs  echo,  and  the  hours  speed  away 
on  winged  sandals.  But  this  evening 
neither  host  nor  hostess  could  originate  a 
sentence  in  the  presence  of  what  seemed  to 
their  sentimental  persuasions  the  awful 
tragedy  of  two  hearts.  Indeed,  conversa 
tion  on  ordinary  lines  would  have  been  im 
possible,  but  that  Bayne  with  an  infinite 
self-confidence,  as  it  seemed  to  Mrs.  Briscoe, 
took  the  centre  of  the  stage  and  held  it. 
All  Bayne's  spirit  was  up!  The  poise  and 
reserve  of  his  nature,  his  habit  of  sedulous 
self-control,  were  reasserted.  He  could 
scarcely  forgive  himself  their  momentary 
lapse.  He  felt  it  insupportable  that  he 
should  not  have  held  his  voice  to  normal 
steadiness,  his  pulses  to  their  wonted  calm, 
in  meeting  again  this  woman  who  had 
wrought  him  such  signal  injury,  who  had 

30 


THE    ORDEAU 


put  upon  him  such  insufferable  indignity. 
Surely  he  could  feel  naught  for  her  but  the 
rancor  she  had  earned!  From  the  begin 
ning,  she  had  been  all  siren,  all  deceit.  She 
was  but  the  semblance,  the  figment,  of  his 
foolish  dream,  and  why  should  the  dream 
move  him  still,  shattered  as  it  was  by  the 
torturing  realities  of  the  truth?  Why  must 
he  needs  bring  tribute  to  her  powers,  flatter 
her  ascendency  in  his  life,  by  faltering  be 
fore  her  casual  presence?  He  rallied  all 
his  forces.  He  silently  swore  a  mighty  oath 
that  he  at  least  would  take  note  of  his  own 
dignity,  that  he  would  deport  himself  with 
a  due  sense  of  his  meed  of  self-respect. 
Though  with  a  glittering  eye  and  a  strong 
flush  on  his  cheek,  he  conserved  a  deliberate 
incidental  manner,  and  maintained  a  pose 
of  extreme  interest  in  his  own  prelection  as, 
seated  in  an  arm-chair  before  the  fire  he  be 
gan  to  talk  with  a  very  definite  intention  of  a 

31 


THE    ORDEAL 


quiet  self-assertion,  of  absorbing  and  con 
trolling  the  conversation.  He  described  at 
great  length  the  incidents  of  his  trip  hither, 
and  descanted  on  the  industrial  and  political 
conditions  of  east  Tennessee.  This  brought 
him  by  an  easy  transition  to  an  analysis  of 
the  peculiar  traits  of  its  mountain  popula 
tion,  which  included  presently  their  remark 
able  idiosyncrasies  of  speech.  When  he  was 
fairly  launched  on  this  theme,  which  was 
of  genuine  interest  to  him,  for  he  had  long 
fostered  a  linguistic  fad,  all  danger  of  awk 
ward  silence  or  significant  pauses  was 
eliminated.  He  found  that  Briscoe  could 
furnish  him  with  some  fresh  points  in  com 
parative  philology,  to  his  surprise  and 
gratification,  for  he  never  expected  aught 
bookish  of  his  host.  But  like  men  of  his 
type,  Briscoe  was  a  close  observer  and 
learned  of  the  passing  phase  of  life.  He 
took  issue  again  and  again  with  the  deduc 
tions  of  the  traveller. 

32 


THE    ORDEAL 


"  You  think  it  queer  that  they  use  '  you- 
uns'  in  the  singular  number?  Then  why 
do  you  use  e you3  in  the  singular  number? 
I  haven't  heard  you  '  thou-ing '  around  here 
this  evening.  Just  as  grammatical  in  that 
respect  as  you  are!  And  on  the  same 
principle,  why  do  you  say  '  you  were  '  to 
me  instead  of  '  you  was,'  which  would  be 
more  singular — ha!  ha!  ha!  " 

'  What  I  think  so  curious  is  the  double- 
barrelled  pronbuns  themselves,  '  you-uns  ' 
and  *  we-uns.'  "  Mrs.  Royston  forced  her 
self  to  take  part  in  the  colloquy  at  the  first 
opportunity. 

"  Not  at  all  queer,"  Bayne  promptly  con 
tended.  "  The  correlatives  of  that  locution 
appear  in  other  languages.  The  French  has 
nous  autres,  the  Italian,  noi  altri,  the  Span 
ish,  nosotros." 

"  And  pray  consider  our  own  classical 
'we-all,' "  Mrs.  Briscoe  gayly  interposed, 

3  33 


THE    ORDEAL 


surprised  that  she  could  pluck  up  the  spirit 
for  this  interruption. 

"  More  interesting  to  me  is  the  survival 
in  this  sequestered  region  of  old  English 
words  and  significations,  altogether  obsolete 
elsewhere,"  continued  Bayne.  "  Now,  when 
I  asked  the  driver  yesterday  the  name  of  a 
very  symmetrical  eminence  in  the  midst  of 
the  ranges  he  said  it  had  no  name,  that  it 
was  no  mountain — it  was  just  the  '  moni- 
ment '  of  a  little  ridge,  meaning  the  image, 
the  simulacrum.  This  is  Spenser's  usage." 

"  Look  here,  Julian,"  said  Briscoe,  rising 
suddenly,  all  his  wonted  bluff  self  again, 
"  if  you  fire  off  any  more  of  your  philologic 
wisdom  at  us  I'll  throw  you  over  the  cliff. 
We  are  skilled  in  the  use  of  words — honest, 
straight  talk— not  their  dissection.  I  want 
to  get  at  something  that  we  can  all  en 
joy.  Tune  this  violin  and  come  and  play 
some  of  those  lovely  old  things  that 

34 


THE    ORDEAL 


you  and  Gladys  used  to  practise  together." 

6  Yes,  yes,  indeed,"  exclaimed  Mrs. 
Briscoe  cordially,  and,  rising  promptly,  she 
approached  the  piano. 

Briscoe  also  started  toward  the  instru 
ment,  to  open  it  for  her.  "  Mrs.  Royston 
and  I  will  be  a  generous  audience  and  ap 
plaud  enthusiastically.  But  stop — what  is 
that?" 

He  suddenly  paused,  the  lid  of  the  piano 
half  lifted  in  his  hands,  the  scattered  sheet 
music  falling  in  a  rustling  shower  to  the 
floor. 

"  What  is  that?  "  he  reiterated,  motionless 
and  hearkening. 


II. 

A  VOICE  was  calling  from  out  the  rising 
mists,  calling  again  and  again,  hailing  the 
house.  Briscoe  dropped  the  lid  of  the  piano 
and  strode  to  the  door,  followed  by  Bayne, 
the  ladies  standing  irresolute  on  the  hearth 
rug  and  gazing  apprehensively  after  them. 

The  sudden  changes  incident  to  the  moun 
tain  atmosphere  were  evidenced  in  the 
opaque  density  of  the  fog  that  had  ensued 
on  the  crystalline  clearness  of  the  sunset. 
It  hung  like  a  curtain  from  the  zenith  to 
the  depths  of  the  valley,  obscuring  all  the 
world.  It  had  climbed  the  cliffs;  it  was 
shifting  in  and  out  among  the  pillars  of  the 
veranda ;  it  even  crossed  the  threshold  as  the 
door  was  opened,  then  shrank  back  ghostly- 
wise,  dissolving  at  the  touch  of  the  warm 
home  radiance.  As  the  lamp-light  flickered 
out,  illuminating  its  pervasive  pallor,  the 

36 


THE    ORDEAL 


new-comer  urged  a  very  lame  horse  to  the 
steps  of  the  veranda.  The  two  friends  wait 
ing  within  looked  at  each  other  in  uncer 
tainty  as  to  their  policy  in  admitting  the 
stranger.  Then  as  his  rapid  footfalls 
sounded  on  the  veranda,  and  a  stalwart 
figure  appeared  in  the  doorway,  Briscoe 
tilted  the  shade  of  the  lamp  on  the  table  to 
throw  its  glare  full  on  the  new-comer's  face, 
and  broke  forth  with  an  acclaim  of  recog 
nition  and  welcome. 

To  be  sure,  he  was  but  a  casual  acquaint 
ance,  and  Briscoe's  cordiality  owed  some 
thing  of  its  fervor  to  his  relief  to  find  that 
the  visitor  was  of  no  untoward  antecedents 
and  intentions.  An  old  school-fellow  he  had 
been  long  ago  in  their  distant  city  home, 
who  chanced  to  be  in  the  mountains  on  a 
flying  trip — no  belated  summer  sojourner, 
no  pleasure-seeker,  but  concerned  with 
business,  and  business  of  the  grimmest  moni* 

37 


THE    ORDEAL 


tions.  A  brisk,  breezy  presence  he  had,  his 
cheeks  tingling  red  from  the  burning  of  the 
wind  and  sun  and  the  speed  of  his  ride.  He 
was  tall  and  active,  thirty-five  years  of  age 
perhaps,  with  a  singularly  keen  eye  and  an 
air  intimating  much  decision  of  character, 
of  which  he  stood  in  need  for  he  was  a 
deputy  collector  of  the  revenue  service,  and 
in  the  midst  of  a  dangerous  moonshining 
raid  his  horse  had  gone  dead  lame. 

"  I  hardly  expected  to  find  you  still  here 
at  this  season,"  he  said  to  Briscoe,  con 
gratulating  himself,  "  but  I  took  the 
chances.  You  must  lend  me  a  horse." 

Briscoe's  instincts  of  hospitality  were 
paramount,  and  he  declared  that  he  would 
not  allow  the  new-comer  to  depart  so  sum 
marily.  He  must  stay  and  dine;  he  must 
stay  the  night;  he  must  join  the  hunt  that 
was  planned  for  to-morrow — a  first-rate 
gun  was  at  his  disposal. 

38 


THE    ORDEAL 


"I'll  get  you  back  to  Glaston  without 
delay.  I'll  let  you  drive  the  dog-cart  with 
Fairy-foot,  the  prettiest  bit  of  horse-flesh 
that  ever  wore  a  shoe — trots  to  beat  the 
band!  You  can  hunt  all  day  with  Bayne 
and  me,  and  a  little  before  sunset  you  can 
start  for  Shaft esville,  and  she  will  whisk  you 
there  in  an  hour  and  a  quarter,  twenty  miles. 
You  need  n't  start  till  five  o'clock  to  catch 
the  seven-ten  train,  with  lots  of  time  to 
spare." 

In  spite  of  all  denial,  the  telephone  bell 
was  presently  jangling  as  Briscoe  rang  up 
the  passenger-agent  at  the  railroad  depot 
in  the  little  town  of  Shaftesville,  twenty 
miles  away. 

'  Twenty-six — yes,  Central,  I  did  say 
twenty-six!  .  .  .  Hello,  Tucker,  is  that 
you?  .  .  .  See  here — Mr.  Frank  Dean 
will  be  there  with  the  dog-cart  and  Fairy- 
foot  to-morrow  evening  to  catch  the  seven- 


THE    ORDEAL 


ten  train  for  Glaston — leaves  here  about 
an  hour  by  sun.  Will  you  do  me  the  favor 
to  hire  a  responsible  party  there  to  bring 
the  mare  back?  .  .  .  Can't  spare  a  man 
from  here.  Lost  two  of  my  dogs — yes,  my 
fine,  full-blooded  hounds — you  remember 
Damon  and  Pythias?  Strayed  off  from  the 
pack,  and  all  hands  and  the  cook  have  got 
to  get  out  straightway  and  hunt  them. 
Wolves — awfully  afraid  they  will  get  the 
hounds.  Outnumber  them  and  pull  them 
down — fierce  at  this  season.  .  .  .  Yes, 
I  hope  so!  You'll  look  out  for  Fairy- 
foot?  .  .  .  Thanks,  awfully.  .  .  .  Yes, 
lie  would  do — careful  fellow!  Tell  him  to 
drive  slowly  coming  back.  Dean  will  race 
her  down  there  at  the  top  of  her  speed. 
(Hush  up,  Frank,  /  know  what  I  am  talk 
ing  about.)  Mr.  Dean  will  be  there  all 
right.  Thank  you  very  much.  Do  as  much 
for  you  some  day.  Goo'-by." 

40 


THE    ORDEAL 


But  Dean's  protests  were  serious.  His 
duties  admitted  of  no  trifling.  He  wanted 
no  such  superfine  commodity  as  Fairy-foot, 
but  a  horse  stout  and  sound  he  must  have 
to-night  and  the  favor  of  leaving  his  disabled 
steed  in  Briscoe's  stable.  He  explained  that 
his  misfortune  in  laming  the  horse  and  the 
fog  combined  had  separated  him  from  the 
revenue  posse  just  from  a  secluded  cove, 
where  his  men  had  discovered  and  raided 
an  illicit  distillery  in  a  cavern,  cutting  the 
copper  still  and  worm  to  bits,  demolishing 
the  furnace  and  fermenters,  the  flake-stand 
and  thumper,  destroying  considerable  store 
of  mash  and  beer  and  singlings,  and  seizing 
and  making  off  with  a  barrel  of  the  com 
pleted  product.  A  fine  and  successful  ad 
venture  it  might  have  seemed,  but  there  were 
no  arrests.  The  moonshiners  had  fled  the 
vicinity.  For  aught  the  officer  had  to  show 
for  it,  the  "  wild-cat "  was  a  spontaneous 

41 


THE    ORDEAL 


production  of  the  soil.  He  made  himself 
very  merry  over  this  phase  of  the  affair, 
when  seated  at  the  prettily  appointed  dinner 
table  of  the  bungalow,  and  declared  that 
however  the  marshal  might  regard  the  mat 
ter,  he  could  not  call  it  a  "  water-haul." 

The  repast  concluded,  he  insisted  that  he 
must  needs  be  immediately  in  the  saddle 
again.  He  scarcely  stayed  for  a  puff  of 
an  after-dinner  cigar,  and  when  he  had  bid 
den  the  ladies  adieu  both  Bayne  and  Bris- 
coe  went  with  him  to  the  stable,  to  assist 
in  the  selection  of  a  horse  suited  to  his  needs. 
Little  Archie  ran  after  them,  begging  to  be 
admitted  to  their  company.  Briscoe  at  once 
caught  him  up  to  his  shoulder,  and  there  he 
was  perched,  wisely  overlooking  the  choice 
of  an  animal  sound  and  fresh  and  strong 
as  the  three  men  made  the  tour  from  stall 
to  stall,  preceded  by  a  brisk  negro  groom, 
swinging  a  lantern  to  show  the  points  of  each 
horse  under  discussion. 

42 


THE    ORDEAL 


In  three  minutes  the  revenue  officer, 
mounted  once  more,  tramped  out  into  the 
shivering  mists  and  the  black  night.  The 
damp  fallen  leaves  deadened  the  sound  of 
departing  hoofs ;  the  obscurities  closed  about 
him,  and  he  vanished  from  the  scene,  leav 
ing  not  a  trace  of  his  transitory  presence. 

Briscoe  lingered  in  the  stable,  finding  a 
jovial  satisfaction  in  the  delight  of  little 
Archie  in  the  unaccustomed  experience,  for 
the  child  had  the  time  of  his  life  that  melan 
choly  sombre  night  in  the  solitudes  of  the 
great  mountains.  His  stentorian  shouts  and 
laughter  were  as  bluff  as  if  he  were  ten  years 
old,  and  as  boisterous  as  if  he  were  drunk 
besides.  Briscoe  had  perched  him  on  the 
back  of  a  horse,  where  he  feigned  to  ride  at 
breakneck  speed,  and  his  cries  of  "Gee!" 
"Dullup!"  "G'long!"  rang  out  impe 
riously  in  the  sad,  murky  atmosphere  and 
echoed  back,  shrilly  sweet,  from  the  great 

43 


THE    ORDEAL 


crags.  The  stable  lantern  showed  him  thus 
gallantly  mounted,  against  the  purple  and 
brown  shadows  of  the  background,  his  white 
linen  frock  clasped  low  by  his  red  leather 
belt,  his  cherubic  legs,  with  his  short  half 
hose  and  his  red  shoes,  sticking  stiffly  out 
at  an  angle  of  forty-five  degrees,  his  golden 
curls  blowing  high  on  his  head,  his  face  pink 
with  joy  and  laughter.  The  light  shone  too 
in  the  big,  astonished  eyes  of  the  fine  ani 
mal  he  bestrode,  now  and  then  turning  his 
head  inquisitively  toward  Briscoe — who 
stood  close  by  with  a  cautious  grasp  on  the 
skirts  of  the  little  boy — as  if  wondering  to 
feel  the  clutch  of  the  infantile  hands  on  his 
mane  and  the  tempestuous  beat  of  the  little 
feet  as  Archie  cried  out  his  urgency  to  speed. 
Archie  would  not  willingly  have  relin 
quished  this  joy  till  dawn,  and  the  problem 
how  to  get  him  peaceably  off  the  horse  be 
came  critical.  He  had  repeatedly  declined 

44 


THE    ORDEAL 


to  dismount,  when  at  length  a  lucky  inspira 
tion  visited  Briscoe.  The  amiable  host 
called  for  an  ear  of  corn,  and  with  this  he 
lured  the  little  horseman  to  descend,  in  or 
der  to  feed  a  "  poor  pig  "  represented  as  in 
the  last  stages  of  famine  and  dependent 
solely  on  the  ministrations  of  the  small  guest. 
Here  renewed  delights  expanded,  for  the 
"  poor  pig "  became  lively  and  almost 
"  gamesome,"  being  greatly  astonished  by 
the  light  and  men  and  the  repast  at  this 
hour  of  the  night.  As  he  was  one  of  those 
gormands  who  decline  no  good  thing,  he 
affably  accepted  Archie's  offering,  so  gra 
ciously  indeed  that  the  little  fellow  called 
for  another  ear  of  corn  more  amply  to  relieve 
the  porcine  distresses,  the  detail  of  which  had 
much  appealed  to  his  tender  heart.  It 
seemed  as  if  the  choice  of  the  good  Mr. 
Briscoe  lay  between  the  fiction  of  riding  an 
endless  race  or  playing  the  Samaritan  to 

45 


THE    ORDEAL 


the  afflicted  pig,  when  in  the  midst  of 
Archie's  noisy  beatitudes  sleep  fell  upon  him 
unaware,  like  a  thief  in  the  night.  As  he 
waited  for  the  groom  to  reappear  with  the 
second  relay  of  refreshments,  Briscoe  felt 
the  tense  little  body  in  his  clasp  grow  limp 
and  collapse;  the  eager  head  with  its  long 
golden  curls  drooped  down  on  his  shoulder; 
the  shout,  already  projected  on  the  air,  qua 
vered  and  failed  midway,  giving  place  to  a 
deep-drawn  sigh,  and  young  Royston  was 
fairly  eclipsed  for  the  night,  translated 
doubtless  to  an  unexplored  land  of  dreams 
where  horses  and  pigs  and  revenue  officers 
and  mountains  ran  riot  together  "  in  much 
admired  disorder."  Briscoe  bore  him  ten 
derly  in  his  arms  to  the  house,  and,  after 
transferring  him  to  his  nurse,  rejoined  with 
Bayne  the  ladies  in  the  hall. 

Here  they  found  a  change  of  sentiment 
prevailing.     Although  failing  in  no  obser- 

46 


THE    ORDEAL 


vance  of  courtesy,  Mrs.  Briscoe  had  been 
a  little  less  than  complaisant  toward  the  de 
parted  guest.  This  had  been  vaguely  per 
ceptible  to  Briscoe  at  the  time,  but  now  she 
gency  constrained  him." 

"  I  don't  see  why  you  should  have  asked 
him  to  dine,"  she  said  to  her  husband.  "  He 
was  difficult  to  persuade,  and  only  your  ur 
gency  constrained  him." 

Her  face  was  uncharacteristically  petu 
lant  and  anxious  as  she  stood  on  the  broad 
hearth  at  one  side  of  the  massive  mantel 
piece,  one  hand  lifted  to  the  high  shelf;  her 
red  cloth  gown  with  the  amber- tinted  gleams 
of  the  lines  of  otter  fur  showed  richly  in  the 
blended  light  of  fire  and  lamp.  Her  eyes 
seemed  to  shrink  from  the  window,  at  which 
nevertheless  she  glanced  ever  and  anon. 

"  I  delight  in  the  solitude  here,  and  I  have 
never  felt  afraid,  but  I  think  that  since  this 
disastrous  raid  that  revenue  officer  is  in  dan- 

47 


THE    ORDEAL 


ger  in  this  region  from  the  moonshiners,  and 
that  his  presence  at  our  house  will  bring  en 
mity  on  us.  It  really  makes  me  apprehen 
sive.  It  was  not  prudent  to  entertain  him, 
and  certainly  not  at  all  necessary — it  was 
almost  against  his  will,  in  fact." 

"  Well,  well,  he  is  gone  now,"  returned 
Briscoe  easily,  lifting  the  lid  of  the  piano 
and  beginning  to  play  a  favorite  air.  But 
she  would  not  quit  the  subject. 

"  While  you  three  were  at  the  stable  I 
thought  I  heard  a  step  on  the  veranda — you 
need  not  laugh — Lillian  heard  it  as  well  as 
I.  Then,  when  you  were  so  long  coming 
back,  I  went  upstairs  to  get  a  little  shawl  to 
send  out  to  you  to  put  over  Archie  as  you 
came  across  the  yard — the  mists  are  so  dank 
—and  I  saw — I  am  sure  I  saw — just  for  a 
minute — a  light  flicker  from  the  hotel  across 
the  ravine." 

Briscoe,  his  hands  crashing  out  involun- 

48 


THE    ORDEAL 


tarily  a  discordant  chord,  looked  over  his 
shoulder  with  widening  eyes.  "  Why, 
Gladys,  there  is  not  a  soul  in  the  hotel 
now!" 

"  That  is  why  the  light  there  seemed  so 
strange." 

"  Besides,  you  know,  you  couldn't  have 
seen  a  light  for  the  mists." 

'  The  mists  were  shifting;  they  rose  and 
then  closed  in  again.  Ask  Lillian — she  hap 
pened  to  be  standing  at  the  window  there, 
and  she  said  she  saw  the  stars  for  a  few 
moments." 

ff  Now,  now,  now!  "  exclaimed  Briscoe  re- 
monstrantly,  rising  and  coming  toward  the 
hearth.  '  You  two  are  trying  to  get  up  a 
panic,  which  means  that  this  delicious  sea 
son  in  the  mountains  is  at  an  end  for  us,  and 
we  must  go  back  to  town.  Why  can't  you 
understand  that  Mrs.  Royston  saw  the  stars 
and  perhaps  a  glimpse  of  the  moon,  and  that 

4  49 


THE    ORDEAL 


then  you  both  saw  the  glimmer  of  their  re 
flection  on  the  glass  of  the  windows  at  the 
vacant  hotel.  Is  there  anything  wonderful 
in  that?  I  appeal  to  Julian." 

"  I  don't  know  anything  about  the  condi 
tions  here,  but  certainly  that  explanation 
sounds  very  plausible.  As  to  the  step  on 
the  veranda,  Ned  and  I  can  take  our  revol 
vers  and  ascertain  if  anyone  is  prowling 
about." 

The  proposition  appealed  to  Mrs.  Bris- 
coe,  and  she  was  grateful  for  the  suggestion, 
since  it  served,  however  illogically,  to  soothe 
her  nerves.  She  looked  at  Bayne  very  kindly 
when  he  came  in  with  his  host,  from  the 
dripping  densities  of  the  fog,  his  face  shin 
ing  like  marble  with  the  pervasive  moisture, 
his  pistol  in  his  hand,  declaring  that  there 
was  absolutely  nothing  astir.  But  indeed 
there  was  more  than  kind  consideration  in 
Mrs.  Briscoe's  look;  there  was  question, 

50 


THE    ORDEAL 


speculation,  an  accession  of  interest,  and 
he  was  quick  to  note  an  obvious,  though  in 
definable,  change  in  Mrs.  Royston's  eyes  as 
they  rested  upon  him.  She  had  spent  the 
greater  portion  of  the  evening  tete-a-tete 
with  her  hostess,  the  men  being  with  the 
horses.  He  was  suddenly  convinced  that 
meantime  he  had  been  the  theme  of  conver 
sation  between  the  two,  and — the  thought 
appalled  him! — Mrs.  Briscoe  had  persuaded 
her  friend  that  to  see  again  the  woman  who 
had  enthralled  him  of  yore  was  the  lure  that 
had  brought  him  so  unexpectedly  to  this 
solitude  of  the  mountains.  His  object  was 
a  matter  of  business,  they  had  been  told,  to 
be  sure,  but  "  business  "  is  an  elastic  and 
comprehensive  term,  and  in  fact,  in  view  of 
the  convenience  of  mail  facilities,  it  might 
well  cloak  a  subterfuge.  Naturally,  the  men 
had  not  divulged  to  the  women  the  nature 
of  the  business,  more  especially  since  it  con- 

51 


THE    ORDEAL 


cerned  the  qualifications  of  a  prospective 
attorney-in-fact.  This  interpretation  of  his 
stay  Bayne  had  not  foreseen  for  one  mo 
ment.  His  whole  being  revolted  against  the 
assumption — that  he  should  languish  again 
at  the  feet  of  this  traitress;  that  he  should 
open  once  more  his  heart  to  be  the  target 
of  her  poisonous  arrows ;  that  he  should  drag 
his  pride,  his  honest  self-respect,  in  the  dust 
of  humiliation!  How  could  they  be  so  dull, 
so  dense,  as  to  harbor  such  a  folly?  The 
thought  stung  him  with  an  actual  venom; 
it  would  not  let  him  sleep ;  and  when  toward 
dawn  he  fell  into  a  troubled  stupor,  half 
waking,  half  dreaming,  the  torpid  state  was 
so  pervaded  with  her  image,  the  sound  of  her 
voice,  that  he  wrested  himself  from  it  with 
a  conscious  wrench  and  rose  betimes,  doubt 
ful  if,  in  the  face  of  this  preposterous  per 
suasion,  he  could  so  command  his  resolution 
as  to  continue  his  stay  as  he  had  planned. 

52 


III. 

ON  descending  the  stairs,  Bayne  found 
the  fire  newly  alight  in  the  hall,  burning  with 
that  spare,  clear  brilliancy  that  the  recent 
removal  of  ashes  imparts  to  a  wood  fire.  All 
the  world  was  still  beclouded  with  mists,  and 
the  windows  and  doors  looked  forth  on  a 
blank  white  nullity — as  inexpressive,  as 
enigmatical,  as  the  unwritten  page  of  the 
unformulated  future  itself.  The  present 
seemed  eliminated;  he  stood  as  it  were  in 
the  atmosphere  of  other  days.  But  whither 
had  blown  the  incense  of  that  happy  time? 
The  lights  on  the  shrine  had  dwindled  to  ex 
tinction!  What  had  befallen  his  strong 
young  hopes,  his  faith,  his  inspiration,  that 
they  had  exhaled  and  left  the  air  vapid  and 
listless?  He  was  conscious  that  he  was  no 
more  the  man  who  used  to  await  her  com 
ing,  expectant,  his  eyes  on  the  door.  He 

53 


THE    ORDEAL 


had  now  scarcely  a  pulse  in  common  with 
that  ardent  young  identity  he  remembered 
as  himself — his  convictions  of  the  nobler  en 
dowments  of  human  nature;  his  candid  un 
reserve  with  his  fellows;  his  aspirations  to 
ward  a  fair  and  worthy  future;  his  docile, 
sweet,  almost  humble  content  with  such 
share  of  the  good  things  of  this  life  as  had 
been  vouchsafed  him;  his  strength,  as  "  with 
the  strength  of  ten,"  to  labor  night  and  day 
with  the  impetus  of  his  sanctified  impulses; 
but,  above  all,  his  love,  that  had  consecrated 
his  life,  his  love  for  this  woman  who  he 
believed — poor  young  fool! — loved  him. 
How  could  five  years  work  such  change? 
World-worn  he  was  and  a-weary,  casuistic, 
cautious,  successful  in  a  sort  as  the  logical 
result  of  the  exercise  of  sound  commercial 
principles  and  more  than  fair  abilities,  but 
caring  less  and  less  for  success  since  its  pos 
session  had  only  the  inherent  values  of  gain 

54 


THE    ORDEAL 


and  was  hallowed  by  no  sweet  and  holy  ex 
pectation  of  bestowal.  He  could  have  wept 
for  the  metamorphosis !  Whatever  he  might 
yet  become,  he  could  never  be  again  this  self. 
This  bright,  full-pulsed  identity  was  dead- 
dead  for  all  time !  Icarus-like,  he  had  fallen 
midway  in  a  flight  that  under  other  condi 
tions  might  have  been  long  and  strong  and 
sustained,  and  he  bemoaned  his  broken 
wings. 

So  much  depression  of  spirit  was  in  his 
attitude,  even  listless  despair,  as  he  stood  in 
the  vacant  apartment,  looking  down  at  the 
silver  bowl  on  the  table,  filled  with  white 
roses  and  galax  leaves,  freshly  gathered;  so 
much  of  the  thought  in  his  mind  was  ex 
pressed  in  Ms  face,  distinct  and  definite 
in  the  firelight,  despite  the  clouds  at  the  dim 
window,  that  Lillian  Royston,  descending 
the  stair  unperceived,  read  in  its  lineaments 
an  illuminated  text  of  the  past. 

55 


THE    ORDEAL 


"  Oh,  Julian,  Julian,  I  was  cruel  to  you — - 
I  was  cruel  to  you!"  she  cried  out  impul 
sively  in  a  poignant  voice. 

He  started  violently  at  the  sound,  com 
ing  back  indeed  through  the  years.  He 
looked  up  at  her,  seeing  as  in  a  dream  her 
slim  figure  clad  in  a  gray  cloth  gown,  on  the 
landing  of  the  stair.  Her  face  was  soft 
and  young  and  wistful ;  her  aspect  had  con 
quered  the  years;  she  was  again  the  girl  he 
knew  of  old,  whom  he  had  fancied  he  had 
loved,  crying  out  in  the  constraining  impe 
tus  of  a  genuine  emotion,  "  I  was  cruel  to 
you !  I  was  cruel  to  you !  " 

The  next  moment  he  was  all  himself  of 
to-day — cool,  confident,  serene,  with  that 
suggestion  of  dash  and  vigor  that  charac 
terized  his  movements.  "  Why,  don't  men 
tion  it,  I  beg,"  he  said  with  a  quiet  laugh 
and  his  smooth,  incidental  society  manner, 
as  if  it  were  indeed  a  matter  of  trifling  con- 

56 


THE    ORDEAL 


sequence.  Then,  "  I  am  sure  neither  of  us 
has  anything  to  regret."  The  last  sentence 
he  thought  a  bit  enigmatical,  and  he  said  to 
Briscoe  afterward  that,  although  strictly 
applicable,  he  did  not  quite  know  what  he 
had  meant  by  it.  For  the  door  had  opened 
suddenly,  and  his  host  had  inopportunely 
entered  at  the  instant.  Although  Briscoe 
had  affected  to  notice  nothing,  he  heard  the 
final  sentence,  and  he  was  disposed  to  berate 
Bayne  when  the  awkward  breakfast  was 
concluded  and  the  party  had  scattered. 

'  You  were  mighty  sarcastic,  sure,"  he 
observed  to  Bayne  over  their  cigars  in  the 
veranda,  for  with  all  the  world  submerged 
in  the  invisibilities  of  the  mists  the  day's  hunt 
was  necessarily  called  off. 

"  Why,  I  was  rattled,"  Bayne  declared. 
"  I  did  not  expect  to  hear  her  upbraid  her 
self." 

"  She  is  so  sensitive,"  said  Briscoe  com- 

57 


THE    ORDEAL 


passionately.  He  had  heard  from  his  wife 
the  interpretation  that  she  had  placed  on 
Bayne's  sudden  visit  to  this  secluded  spot, 
and  though  he  well  knew  its  falsity,  he  could 
but  sympathize  with  her  hope.  "  Lillian  is 
very  sensitive.'' 

"  I  think  it  is  up  to  me  to  be  sensitive 
on  that  subject;  but  her  sensitiveness  at  this 
late  day  is  what  gave  me  the  cold  shivers." 

Briscoe  eyed  him  sternly,  the  expression 
incongruous  with  the  habitual  aspect  of  his 
broad,  jovial,  florid  face.  Their  features 
were  visible  to  each  other,  though  now  and 
then  the  fog  would  shift  between  the  rustic 
chairs  in  wrhich  they  sat.  Julian  Bayne 
laughed.  How  easily  even  now  did  this 
woman  convert  every  casual  acquaintance 
into  an  eager  partisan! 

"  If  she  is  growing  sensitive  for  her  cruel 
ties  to  me,  I  am  apprehensive  that  it  may  be 
in  her  mind  to  make  amends.  I  should 

58 


THE   ORDEAL 


keep  away  from  her — discretion  being  the 
better  part  of  valor." 

Briscoe  drew  back  with  an  air  of  averse 
distaste.  He  spoke  guardedly,  however,  re 
membering  that  he  was  in  his  own  house 
and  fearful  of  going  too  far;  yet  he  could 
not  let  this  pass.  "  You  surprise  me, 
Julian.  I  never  imagined  you  could  say 
anything  so — so — caddish." 

'  Why  don't  you  say  '  currish  '  and  be 
done  with  it?"  Julian's  eyes  flashed  fire. 
His  face  had  flushed  deeply  red.  Every 
muscle  was  tense,  alert.  Then  he  checked 
himself  hastily.  He  turned  his  cigar  in  his 
hand  and  looked  intently  at  it  as  he  reflected 
that  this  woman  had  already  done  harm 
enough  in  his  life.  He  would  not  allow  her 
to  inflict  the  further  and  irreparable  injury 
of  coming  between  him  and  the  friend  he 
loved  as  a  brother.  He  slipped  quietly  into 
his  former  easy  attitude  before  he  resumed, 


THE    ORDEAL 


smiling:  "  Currish,  indeed  it  may  be,  but 
that  is  exactly  the  kind  of  old  dog  Tray  I 


am." 


"  You  will  please  take  notice  that  I  have 
said  nothing  of  the  sort,"  Briscoe  stiffly  re 
joined.  '  But  I  think  and  I  do  say  that  it 
is  a  preposterous  instance  of  coxcombry  to 
subject  such  a  woman  as  Mrs.  Royston — 
because  of  a  generous  moment  of  self-re 
proach  for  a  cruel  and  selfish  deed — to  the 
imputation  of  inviting  advances  from  a  man 
who  coyly  plans  evasion  and  flight — and  she 
scarcely  two  years  a  widow." 

"  Time  cuts  no  ice  in  the  matter," 
Bayne  forced  himself  to  continue  the  discus 
sion.  "  She  has  certainly  shown  the  manes 
of  Archibald  Royston  the  conventional 
respect." 

"  She  made  an  awful  mistake,  we  all  know 
that!  And  although  I  realized  that  it  was 
on  account  of  that  rubbishy  little  quarrel 

60 


THE    ORDEAL 


you  and  she  got  up  at  the  last  moment,  I 
felt  for  her,  because  to  people  generally  her 
choice  was  subject  to  the  imputation  of  be 
ing  wholly  one  of  interest.  They  were  so 
dissimilar  in  taste,  so  uncongenial;  and  I 
really  think  he  did  not  love  her!  " 

"  He  had  no  other  motive,  at  all  events." 
"  Oh,  of  course  he  had  a  certain  prefer 
ence  for  her ;  and  it  was  the  sort  of  triumph 
that  such  a  man  would  relish — to  carry  her 
off  from  you  at  the  last  moment.  I  always 
recognized  his  influence  in  the  sensational 
elements  of  that  denouement.  He  liked  her 
after  a  fashion — to  preside  in  a  princess-like 
style  in  his  big  house,  to  illustrate  to  advan 
tage  his  florid  expenditure  of  money,  to  spar 
kle  with  wit  and  diamonds  at  the  head  of  his 
table — a  fine  surface  for  decoration  she  has! 
But  Royston  couldn't  love — couldn't  really 
care  for  anything  but  himself — a  man  of  that 
temperament." 

61 


THE    ORDEAL 


Bayne  rose;  he  had  reached  the  limit  of 
his  endurance ;  he  could  maintain  his  tutored 
indifference,  but  he  would  not  seek  to  ana 
lyze  the  event  anew  or  to  adjust  himself  to 
the  differentiations  of  sentiment  that  Bris- 
coe  seemed  disposed  to  expect  him  to 
canvass. 

The  encroachments  of  the  surging  seas  of 
mist  had  reduced  the  limits  of  the  world  to 
the  interior  of  the  bungalow,  and  the  myriad 
interests  and  peoples  of  civilization  to  the 
little  household  circle.  The  day  in  the  per 
vasive  constraint  that  hampered  their  rela 
tions  wore  slowly  away.  Under  the  circum 
stances,  even  the  resources  of  bridge  were 
scarcely  to  be  essayed.  Bayne  lounged  for 
hours  with  a  book  in  a  swing  on  the  veranda. 
Briscoe,  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  his  hat  on 
the  back  of  his  head,  his  cigar  cocked  be 
tween  his  teeth — house-bound,  he  smoked  a 
prodigious  number  of  them  for  sheer  occu- 


THE    ORDEAU 


pation — strolled  aimlessly  in  and  out,  now  in 
the  stables,  now  listening  and  commenting 
as  Gladys  at  the  piano  played  the  music  of 
his  choice.  Lillian  had  a  score  of  letters  to 
write.  Her  mind,  however,  scarcely  fol 
lowed  her  pen  as  she  sat  in  the  little  library 
that  opened*  from  the  big,  cheery  hall.  Her 
thoughts  were  with  all  that  had  betided  in 
the  past  and  what  might  have  been.  She 
canvassed  anew,  as  often  heretofore,  her 
strange  infatuation,  like  a  veritable  aberra 
tion,  so  soon  she  had  ceased  to  love  her  hus 
band,  to  make  the  signal  and  significant  dis 
covery  that  he  was  naught  to  love.  She  had 
always  had  a  sort  of  enthusiasm  for  the  truth 
in  the  abstract — not  so  much  as  a  moral  en 
dowment,  but  a  supreme  fixity,  the  one  im 
mutable  value,  superior  to  vicissitudes.  She 
could  not  weep  for  a  lie ;  she  could  only  won 
der  how  it  should  ever  have  masqueraded  as 
the  holy  verities. 

63 


THE    ORDEAL 


She  would  not  rehearse  her  husband's 
faults,  and  the  great  disaster  of  the  revela 
tion  of  his  true  character  that  made  the  few 
short  years  she  had  passed  with  him  stretch 
out  in  retrospect  like  a  long  and  miserable 
life.  It  was  over  now,  and  her  friends  could 
not  disguise  their  estimation  of  the  end  as  a 
blessed  release.  But  peace  had  not  come 
with  it.  She  was  not  impervious  to  remorse, 
regret,  humiliation,  for  her  course.  The 
sight  of  Bayne,  the  sound  of  his  voice,  had 
poignantly  revived  the  past,  and  if  she  had 
suffered  woeful  straits  from  wanton  cruelty, 
she  could  not  deny  to  herself  that  she  had 
been  consciously,  carelessly,  and  causelessly 
cruel.  In  withdrawing  herself  to  the  library 
she  had  thwarted  certain  feints  of  Mrs. 
Briscoe's  designed  to  throw  them  together 
in  her  hope  of  their  reconciliation.  Lillian 
had  become  very  definitely  aware  that  this 
result  was  far  alien  to  any  expectation  on 

64 


THE    ORDEAL 


Bayne's  part,  and  her  cheeks  burned  with 
humiliation  that  she  should  for  one  moment, 
with  flattered  vanity  and  a  strange  thrill 
about  her  heart,  have  inclined  to  Mrs.  Bris- 
coe's  fantastic  conviction  as  to  the  motive  of 
his  journey  hither.  Indeed,  within  his  view 
she  could  now  scarcely  maintain  her  poise 
and  the  incidental  unconscious  mien  that 
the  conventions  of  the  situation  demanded. 
She  welcomed  the  movement  in  the  folds  of 
the  curtaining  mist  that  betokened  a  pros 
pect  of  liftingand  liberating  the  house-bound 
coterie.  Presently,  as  she  wrote,  she  heard 
the  stir  of  the  wind  in  the  far  reaches  of  the 
valley.  The  dense  white  veil  that  swung 
from  the  zenith  became  suddenly  pervaded 
with  vague  shivers;  then  tenuous,  gauzy 
pennants  were  detached,  floating  away  in 
great  lengths;  the  sun  struck  through  from 
a  dazzling  focus  in  a  broad,  rayonnant, 
fibrous  emblazonment  of  valley  and  range, 

5  65 


THE    ORDEAL 


and  as  she  rose  and  went  to  the  window  to 
note  the  weather  signs  she  could  not  resist 
the  lure  of  escape.  She  had  struggled  all 
day  with  an  eager  desire  to  be  out  of  the 
house,  removed  from  the  constantly  recur 
ring  chances  of  meeting  Bayne,  quit  of  the 
sight  of  him.  She  instantly  caught  up  her 
broad  gray  hat  with  its  flaunting  red  and 
gray  ostrich  plumes  and  called  out  to  Mrs. 
Briscoe  a  suggestion  that  they  should  repair 
to  the  vacant  hotel  for  a  tramp  on  its 
piazzas,  for  it  was  the  habit  of  the  two  ladies 
in  rainy  or  misty  weather  to  utilize  these 
long,  sheltered  stretches  for  exercise,  and 
many  an  hour  they  walked,  on  dreary  days, 
in  these  deserted  precincts. 

"  I'll  overtake  you,"  was  Mrs.  Briscoe's 
rejoinder,  and  until  then  Lillian  had  not  no 
ticed  the  employ  of  her  hostess.  The  gar 
dener  was  engaged  in  the  removal  of  the 
more  delicate  ornamental  growths  about  the 

66 


THE    ORDEAL 


porte-cochere  and  parterre  to  the  shelter  of 
the  flower-pit,  for  bright  chill  weather  and 
killing  frosts  would  ensue  on  the  dispersal 
of  the  mists.  Mrs.  Briscoe  herself  was  in 
tent  on  withdrawing  certain  hardier  potted 
plants  merely  from  the  verge  of  the  veranda 
to  a  wire-stand  well  under  the  roof.  Bris 
coe  was  at  the  gun-rack  in  the  hall,  restor 
ing  to  its  place  the  favorite  rifle  he  had  in 
tended  to  use  to-day.  He  could  not  refrain 
from  testing  its  perfect  mechanism,  and  at 
the  first  sharp  crack  of  the  hammer,  liber 
ated  by  a  tentative  pull  on  the  trigger,  lit 
tle  Archie  sprang  up  from  his  play  on  the 
hearth-rug,  where  he  was  harnessing  a  toy 
horse  to  Mrs.  Briscoe's  work-basket  by  long 
shreds  of  her  zephyr,  and  ran  clamoring  for 
permission  to  hold  the  gun. 

Mrs.  Briscoe  saw  him  through  the  open 
door  and  instantly  protested:  "  Come  away, 
Archie!  "  Then  to  her  husband,  "  You  men 

67 


THE    ORDEAL 


are  always  killing  somebody  with  an  un 
loaded  gun.  Come  away,  Archie!  " 

"Nonsense,  Gladys!"  Briscoe  remon 
strated.  "  Let  the  child  see  the  rifle.  There 
is  not  a  shell  in  the  whole  rack." 

She  noticed  her  husband  not  at  all. 
"  Come  away,  Archie,"  she  besought  the 
little  man,  staring  spellbound  with  his  big 
blue  eyes.  He  had  scant  care  for  the  author 
ity  of  "  Gad-ish,"  as  Gladys  loved  for  him 
lispingly  to  call  her.  Only  when  she  began 
to  plead  that  she  had  no  one  to  help  her  with 
her  flowers,  to  carry  the  pots  for  her,  did 
he  wrench  himself  from  the  contemplation  of 
the  flashing  steel  mechanism  that  had  for 
him  such  wonderful  fascination  and  lend 
his  flaccid  baby  muscles  to  the  fiction  of 
help.  He  began  zealously  to  toil  to  and  fro, 
carrying  the  smallest  pots  wherever  she  bade 
him.  Her  own  interest  in  the  occupation 
was  enhanced  by  the  colloquy  that  ensued 


THE    ORDEAL 


whenever  she  passed  her  small  guest. 
"Hello,  Archie!"  she  would  call  for  the 
sake  of  hearing  the  saucy,  jocose  response: 
"  Oh,  oo  Gad-ish!  "  as  the  juvenile  convoy 
fared  along  with  his  small  cargo. 

Lillian  felt  that  she  could  not  wait. 
.Gladys  might  come  at  her  leisure.  She  burst 
impulsively  out  of  the  door,  throwing  on 
her  hat  as  she  went,  albeit  wincing  that  she 
must  needs  pass  Bayne  at  close  quarters  as 
he  still  lounged  in  the  veranda  swing.  He 
looked  up  at  the  sound  of  the  swift  step  and 
the  sudden  stir,  and  for  one  instant  their 
eyes  met — an  inscrutable  look,  fraught  with 
an  undivined  meaning.  For  their  lives, 
neither  could  have  translated  its  deep  intend- 
ment.  She  said  no  word,  and  he  merely 
lifted  his  hat  ceremoniously  and  once  more 
bent  his  eyes  on  his  book. 

She  was  like  a  thing  long  imprisoned, 
liberated  by  some  happy  chance.  Her  feet 


THE    ORDEAL 


seemed  scarcely  to  touch  the  ground  as  she 
sped  along  down  the  ravine,  then  across 
the  rustic  bridge  that  spanned  the  chasm 
through  which  rushed  the  tumultuous  moun 
tain  stream  foaming  among  the  boulders 
deep  in  its  depths,  and  breaking  ever  and 
anon  into  crystal  cascades.  On  the  opposite 
side  she  soon  struck  into  the  mountain  road 
that  had  been  graded  and  tamed  and  im 
proved  by  the  hotel  management  into  the 
aspect  of  a  sophisticated  driveway,  as  it 
swept  up  to  the  great  flight  of  steps  at  the 
main  entrance  of  the  big  white  building. 


IV. 

THE  vacant  hotel,  bereft  of  the  pleasure- 
seeking  crowds  whose  presence  seemed  the 
essential  condition  of  its  existence,  looked 
strangely  sinister  in  the  silent  golden  splen 
dor  of  the  clearing  afternoon,  with  its  tiers 
of  deserted  piazzas,  its  band-stand  mute  and 
empty,  the  observatory  perched  above  the 
precipice,  seemingly  so  precarious  as  to  have 
all  the  effect  of  teetering  in  the  wind. 

Languid  now,  preoccupied,  Lillian  as 
cended  the  long  flight  of  steps  to  the  piazza 
and  paused  to  look  out  at  the  great  spread 
of  the  landscape,  wreathed  in  flying  mists 
and  of  a  different  aspect  from  this  increase 
of  elevation.  She  had  begun  to  stroll  aim 
lessly  along  in  the  possession  of  the  seclusion 
she  craved,  when  she  suddenly  noted  the  fact 
that  the  front  door  stood  a  trifle  ajar.  She 
paused  with  a  repugnant  sense  of  a  lapse  of 

71 


THE    ORDEAL 


caution.  Then  she  reflected  that  bolts  and 
locks  could  add  but  little  security  in  a  desert 
solitude  like  this,  where  a  marauder  might 
work  his  will  from  September  to  June  with 
no  witnesses  but  the  clouds  and  winds  to  hin 
der.  She  had  forgotten  the  insistent  dec 
laration  of  Gladys  that  she  had  seen  a  light 
flicker  from  these  blank  windows  the  pre 
ceding  night.  Indeed,  even  at  the  time  she 
had  accounted  it  but  the  hysteric  adjunct  of 
their  panic  in  the  illusion  of  a  stealthy  step 
on  the  veranda  of  the  bungalow.  She  was 
animated  only  by  the  simplest  impulse  of 
idle  curiosity  when  she  laid  her  hand  on  the 
bolt.  The  big  door  swung  open  at  once  on 
well-oiled  hinges,  and  she  found  herself  in 
the  spacious  hotel  office,  on  one  side  of  which 
were  the  clerk's  desk  and  the  office  clock, 
looking  queerly  disconsolate  without  the 
loitering  groups  of  humanity  wont  to  con 
gregate  about  the  counter.  The  day  glared 

72 


THE    ORDEAL 


garishly  through  the  great  skylight  on  the 
dusty  interior;  the  big  windows  held  expan 
sive  sections  of  mountain  landscape,  bronze, 
blue,  and  scarlet,  like  vivid  paintings  in 
frames.  A  staircase  of  fine  and  stately 
proportions  descended  from  the  lofty  reach 
of  the  upper  story,  dividing  into  two 
sweeping  flights  from  the  landing.  A  mas 
sive  mantel-piece  was  on  the  opposite  side, 
with  an  immense  fireplace,  and  heavy  brass 
andirons  and  fender.  She  was  a  stranger 
to  the  interior  of  the  place,  for  her  visit  to 
the  locality  began  after  the  closing  of  the 
hotel,  but  though  she  looked  about  with  a 
vague  sub-current  of  interest  as  she  saun 
tered  through  the  building,  glad  of  any  pre 
text  to  prolong  her  absence  from  the  bunga 
low,  her  mind  was  really  introverted. 

She  felt  that  she  could  never  forgive  her 
self  her  part  in  the  scene  of  the  morning, 
that  wild,  impulsive  cry  that  voiced  at  once 

73 


THE    ORDEAL 


confession  and  a  plea  for  pardon.  At  the 
sheer  recollection  of  his  rejoinder  she  tingled 
and  winced  as  from  the  touch  of  fire.  "  Don't 
mention  it,"  quotha.  And  they  neither  had 
aught  to  regret — he  was  sure  of  that,  for 
sooth!  Regret!  It  was  only  another  name 
for  her  life.  There  was  nothing  but  regret, 
night  and  day,  sleeping  and  waking.  But 
oh,  how  could  she  have  said  the  words! 
What  was  it  to  him?  He  cared  naught  for 
her  now  and  her  cruelties — an  old,  old  story 
to  him,  to  be  sure,  told  to  the  end,  the  pages 
shut.  And  she  must  needs  seem  to  seek  to 
turn  the  leaf  anew !  What  else  indeed  could 
he  think?  Surely  she  had  been  beguiled  by 
Gladys'  vicarious  sentimentality  as  to  the 
lure  of  his  coming,  even  while  she  had  flouted 
the  possibility. 

Suddenly — a  sound!  It  broke  upon  her 
absorption  so  abruptly  that  in  an  instant 
every  muscle  was  adjusted  for  flight,  though 

74 


THE    ORDEAL 


she  paused  and  looked  fearfully  over  her 
shoulder.  Only  an  echo,  she  told  her  plung 
ing  heart — an  echo  of  her  own  footfalls  in 
the  resonant  emptiness  of  the  deserted  place. 
She  had  wandered  down  a  long  corridor, 
from  which  doors  opened  only  on  one  side 
into  the  big  bare  dining-room,  the  chairs  all 
ranged  on  the  tops  of  the  many  round  tables, 
standing  at  equidistant  intervals.  An  echo 
— doubtless  that  was  all.  She  upbraided 
herself  to  have  sustained  so  sudden  and 
causeless  a  fright.  Her  heart  was  beating 
like  a  trip-hammer.  It  seemed  to  fill  all  the 
building  with  the  wild  iteration  of  its  pul 
sations.  As  she  sought  to  reassure  herself, 
she  remembered  that  in  a  cross-hall  she  had 
noted  the  telephone,  the  wire  still  intact,  as 
she  knew,  for  the  connection  of  the  hotel 
was  with  that  of  the  bungalow  on  a  party- 
line  of  the  exchange  at  Shaftesville,  twenty 
miles  away.  If  she  should  be  really  fright- 

75 


THE    ORDEAL 


ened,  she  could  in  one  moment  call  up  the 
house  across  the  ravine. 

The  next  instant  she  was  almost  palsied 
with  recurrent  terror:  the  footfall,  stealthy, 
shuffling,  weighty,  sounded  again.  It  was 
never  the  echo  of  her  own  deft,  light  step! 
A  distinct,  sibilant  whisper  suddenly  hissed 
with  warning  throughout  the  place,  and  as 
she  turned  with  the  instinct  of  flight  she 
caught  a  glimpse  in  the  darkling  mirror 
across  the  dining-room  of  a  fugitive  speed 
ing  figure,  then  another,  and  still  another, 
all  frantically,  noiselessly  fleeing — why  or 
whom,  she  could  not  descry,  she  did  not  try 
to  discriminate. 

Without  a  word  or  a  sound — her  voice  had 
deserted  her — she  turned  precipitately  and 
fled  in  the  opposite  direction  through  the 
corridor,  down  a  cross-hall,  and  burst  out  of 
a  side  door  upon  a  porch  that  was  the  near 
est  outlet  from  the  building.  This  porch  was 

76 


THE    ORDEAL 


less  intended  as  an  exit,  however,  than  an 
outlook.  True,  there  were  steps  that  led 
down  at  one  side  to  the  ground,  but  the  de 
scent  thence  was  so  steep,  so  rugged  and  im 
practicable,  that  obviously  no  scheme  of 
utility  had  prompted  its  construction. 
Jagged  outcropping  ledges,  a  chaos  of  scat 
tered  boulders,  now  and  again  a  pre 
cipitous  verge  showing  a  vertical  section  of 
the  denuded  strata,  all  formed  a  slant  so 
precarious  and  steep  that  with  the  sharp 
sound  of  the  door,  closing  on  its  spring, 
Bayne  looked  up  from  his  seat  in  the  swing 
on  the  veranda  across  the  ravine  in  blank 
amazement  to  see  her  there  essaying  the  de 
scent,  as  if  in  preference  to  an  exit  by  the 
safe  and  easy  method  of  the  winding  road 
at  the  front  of  the  edifice. 

Lillian,  still  with  all  the  impetus  of  ter 
ror  in  her  muscles,  her  breath  short  and 
fluttering,  her  eyes  distended  and  unseeing, 

77 


THE    ORDEAL 


plunged  wildly  down  the  rugged,  craggy 
declivity,  painfully  aware  of  his  wonder 
as  he  gazed  from  the  distance,  prefigur 
ing,  too,  his  disapproval.  Perhaps  this  had  its 
unnerving  influence,  though  swift  and  sure 
footed  ordinarily,  her  ankle  turned  amidst 
the  gravel  shifting  beneath  her  flying  steps, 
and  she  sank  suddenly  to  the  ground,  slipped 
down  a  precipitous  incline,  caught  herself, 
half  crouching  against  a  gigantic  boulder. 

There  was  no  recourse  for  Bayne.  No 
one  else  was  within  view.  Though  between 
his  teeth  he  muttered  his  distaste  for  the  de 
voir  that  should  bring  him  to  her  side,  and 
the  solicitude  he  was  constrained  to  show, 
he  leaped  from  the  veranda  and  started 
down  the  ravine  to  her  assistance,  to  "  make 
his  manners,"  as  he  said  sarcastically  to  him 
self.  But  when  he  had  come  to  the  little 
rustic  bridge  and,  glancing  up,  saw  that  she 
had  not  yet  risen,  he  began  to  run,  and  be- 

78 


THE    ORDEAL 


fore  he  reached  her,  climbing  the  ascent 
with  athletic  agility,  he  called  out  to  ask  if 
the  fall  had  hurt  her. 

"  I  don't  know,"  she  faltered,  and  when 
he  was  at  her  side  she  looked  up  at  him  with 
a  pale  and  quivering  face. 

"  Try  to  stand,"  he  urged,  as  he  leaned 
down  and  took  her  arm.  "  Let  me  lift  you. 
There!  How  did  it  happen?  " 

"  My  ankle  turned,"  she  replied,  rising 
with  effort  and  standing  unsteadily,  despite 
his  support. 

"  Does  it  pain  you?  "  he  queried  with  po 
lite  solicitude,  looking  down  at  the  dainty 
low-cut  gray  shoe.  "Bear  your  weight  on  it." 

She  essayed  the  experiment.  "  No,"  she 
barely  whispered ;  "  it  is  all  right." 

He  fixed  upon  her  a  look  of  questioning 
amazement,  as  she  still  held  trembling  to 
his  arm.  "  What  is  the  matter,  then?  " 

"  There  is  somebody  in  the  hotel." 

79 


THE    ORDEAL 


He  gave  a  hasty  glance  upward  from  un 
der  the  stiff  brim  of  his  hat.  "Hardly 
likely — but  I'll  examine  and  see." 

He  was  about  to  start  off  when  she  tight 
ened  her  clutch  on  his  arm. 

"No,  no,"  she  pleaded.  "Don't  leave 
me!  I  don't  know  why — but  I  can't  stand. 
I  can't  walk." 

"  Did  you  really  hear  something? "  he 
asked  sceptically. 

The  light  note  of  satire  stung  her  pride. 
"  Oh,  I  saw  them,  and  they  saw  me,"  she 
protested.  "  I  saw  three  men,  and  they  all 
ran  as  I  came  into  the  dining-room." 

He  broke  into  a  short  laugh.  "  Got  them 
on  the  run,  did  you?  Not  very  formidable 
they  were,  you  must  admit.  Shadows,  I 
fancy.  There  is  a  large  mirror  on  the  blank 
side  of  the  dining-room  opposite  the  door. 
Don't  you  suppose  it  possible  that  you  saw 
only  your  own  moving  reflection?  " 

80 


THE    ORDEAL 


Her  pride  was  roused.  The  pulse  of  an 
ger  began  to  tint  her  face  with  a  dull  crim 
son.  "  I  should  imagine  I  could  distinguish 
my  own  reflection  from  three  men — rough- 
looking  men  with  slouched  hats,  all  running 
and  looking  backward  over  their  shoulders." 

It  had  been  a  conscious  effort  to  nerve 
herself  for  this  protest  in  defence  of  her 
poise  and  capacity,  but  at  the  mere  recollec 
tion  of  the  scene  she  had  conjured  up  anew 
she  fell  to  trembling,  looking  very  pale  again 
and  as  if  she  might  faint. 

'  Well,  it  is  no  great  matter,  as  the  in 
truders  were  bluffed  off,"  he  said  suavely, 
putting  the  question  aside.  "  I  will  send  one 
of  Briscoe's  grooms  to  investigate  the  prem 
ises.  But  now,  suppose  we  go  to  the  piazza, 
and  let  you  rest  there  and  recover  from  the 
strain  to  your  ankle."  Once  more  he  glanced 
down  at  the  dainty  shoe  with  its  high  French 
heel.  "  I  don't  wonder  it  turned.  A  proper 

6  81 


THE    ORDEAL 


shoe  for  mountaineering! "  That  rancor 
against  a  frivolity  of  feminine  fashion  that 
holds  a  menace  to  health  or  safety,  so  char 
acteristic  of  the  utilitarian  masculine  mind, 
was  a  touch  of  his  old  individuality,  and  it 
made  him  seem  to  her  more  like  himself  of 
yore.  The  resemblance  did  not  tend  to  con 
firm  her  composure,  and  she  was  almost  pit 
eous  as  she  protested  that  she  could  not,  she 
would  not,  go  near  the  hotel  again. 

'  Why,  you  need  not,  then,"  he  reassured 
her  abruptly,  waiving  the  possibility  of  in 
sistence,  as  much  as  to  say  it  was  no  concern 
of  his. 

"  I  might  walk  to  the  observatory,"  she 
suggested,  "  and — and — I  need  not  detain 
you  then." 

"  In  view  of  three  bandits  in  slouched  hats, 
although  all  on  the  back-track — and  al 
though  I  am  convinced  that  it  was  but  their 
astral  apparitions  with  which  you  were  fa- 

82 


THE    ORDEAL 


vored — I  will  venture  to  intrude  my  society 
until  I  can  see  you  to  the  Briscoe  bungalow." 

"  Oh,  there's  no  intrusion,"  she  rejoined 
petulantly.  "  You  must  know  I  couldn't 
mean  that! " 

"  I  never  know  what  you  mean,  I  am 
sure!  "  he  said  with  that  tense  note  of  satire. 
Then  he  paused  with  a  vague  wonder  at  him 
self  thus  to  trench  on  the  emotional  phases 
between  them  that  must  be  buried  forever. 
Remembering  her  own  allusion  that  morn 
ing,  her  cry  of  regret  and  appeal,  he  was  ap 
prehensive  of  some  renewal  of  the  topic  that 
he  had  thus  invited,  and  he  began  to  move 
hastily  down  the  slope,  supporting  her  with 
care,  but  with  a  certain  urgency  too.  He 
was  obviously  eager  to  terminate  the  con 
versational  opportunity,  and  when  it  was 
requisite  to  pause  to  rest  he  improved  the 
respite  by  beckoning  to  one  of  the  stable 
men  passing  near,  bound  toward  a  pasture 

83 


THE    ORDEAL 


in  the  rear  of  the  hotel  with  a  halter  in  his 
hand,  and  ordering  him  to  investigate  the 
building  to  discover  any  signs  of  intrusion. 

The  man  hearkened  in  patent  surprise, 
then  asked  if  he  might  defer  the  commission 
till  he  had  harnessed  Fairy-foot,  Mr.  Bris- 
coe  having  ordered  out  the  dog-cart  and  his 
favorite  mare. 

"Plenty  of  time,  plenty  of  time!  We 
can't  hope  to  overtake  them,  with  the  start 
they  have  already.  Just  see  if  there  are  any 
signs  of  intrusion  into  the  place  and  report. 
And  now,  Mrs.  Royston,  shall  we  move  on?  " 

The  observatory  was  a  structure  strong 
but  singularly  light  and  airy  of  effect,  poised 
on  the  brink  of  the  mountain,  above  a  slant 
so  steep  as  to  be  precipitous  indeed,  ter 
minating  in  a  sheer  vertical  descent,  after 
affording  such  foothold  as  the  supporting 
timbers  required.  A  great  landscape  it 
overlooked  of  wooded  range  and  valley  in 

84 


THE    ORDEAL 


autumnal  tints  and  burnished  sunset  glow, 
but  this  made  only  scant  impression  on  the 
minds  of  both,  looking  out  with  preoccupied, 
unseeing  eyes.  The  balustrade  around  the 
four  sides  formed  the  back  of  a  bench,  and  on 
this  seat  Lillian  sank  down,  still  feeble  and 
fluttering,  painfully  agitated,  acutely  aware 
that,  as  she  had  no  obvious  physical  hurt,  the 
nervous  shock  she  had  sustained  might 
scarcely  suffice  to  account  for  her  persistent 
claim  on  his  aid  and  attention.  Certainly  he 
was  warranted  in  thinking  anything,  all  he 
would,  since  her  wild,  impulsive  appeal  in 
the  early  morning.  How  had  it  chanced, 
that  cry  from  her  heart!  It  was  a  triumph 
in  some  sort  for  him,  unsought,  complete, 
yet  so  pitiable,  so  mean,  that  he  did  not  even 
care  for  it.  His  face  was  not  triumphant; 
rather,  listless,  anxious,  careworn.  He  was 
gazing  down  toward  the  bungalow  where 
Briscoe  stood  at  the  head  of  the  flight  of 

85 


THE    ORDEAL 


the  veranda  steps,  drawing  on  his  driving 
gloves,  while  Fairy-foot,  the  fine  mare,  now 
resplendent  in  the  least  restrictions  of  har 
ness  that  might  control  her  bounding  spirits 
and  splendid  strength,  stood  between  the 
shafts  of  the  dog-cart  on  the  drive,  a  groom 
at  her  head,  holding  the  bit. 

Mrs.  Briscoe  had  approached,  and  they 
discerned  from  her  husband's  gestures  that 
he  was  inviting  her  to  accompany  him. 
They  could  not  hear  the  words  at  this  dis 
tance,  but  presently  Briscoe,  the  most  trans 
parently  candid  of  men,  suddenly  whirled 
and  glanced  up  toward  the  observatory 
across  the  ravine,  showing  plainly  that  the 
two  had  become  the  subject  of  conversation. 

Lillian  was  all  unstrung,  her  powers  of 
self-control  annulled.  She  broke  out  with 
as  unreasoning  a  sense  of  injury  as  a  sensi 
tive  child  might  have  felt.  '  They  are  talk 
ing  about  us!  "  she  wailed. 


THE    ORDEAL 


"They  are  not  the  first!"  Bayne  could 
not  restrain  his  curt,  bitter  laugh,  the  un 
conscious  humor  of  the  suggestion  was  so 
patent,  albeit  the  edge  cut  deep. 

"  And  how  do  you  suppose  that  fact 
makes  me  feel? "  she  asked,  looking  up  at 
him,  her  eyes  full  of  tears,  her  heart  swell 
ing,  her  face  scarlet. 

Bayne  would  have  given  much  to  avoid 
this  moment.  But  now  that  the  discussion 
was  upon  him,  he  said  to  himself  that  he 
would  not  traffic  with  the  insincerities,  he 
would  not  be  recreant  to  his  own  identity. 
He  would  not  fawn,  and  bow,  and  play  the 
smug  squire  of  dames,  full  of  specious  flat 
teries,  and  kiss  the  hand  that  smote  him. 

"  And  how  do  you  suppose  that  I  should 
think  you  could  feel  at  all?  "  he  retorted 
sternly. 

It  was  so  unlike  him,  the  rebuke — he  had 
so  ardently  worshipped  her,  even  her  faults, 

87 


THE    ORDEAL 


which  were  like  shining  endowments  in  his 
estimation — that  for  the  first  time  she  felt 
the  full  poignancy  of  his  alienation.  He  was 
no  longer  hers,  loving,  regretting,  always 
yearning  after  her,  the  unattainable!  Had 
he  not  said  only  to-day  that  neither  of  them 
had  aught  to  regret?  Was  this  what  he  had 
really  felt  through  the  long  years  of  their 
separation?  Was  it  she  who  had  forfeited 
him,  rather  than  he  who  had  lost  her?  She 
sat  quite  still,  almost  stunned  by  the  realiza 
tion,  a  vague  sense  of  bereavement  upon  her. 
A  woman's  faith  in  the  constancy  of  a  lover 
is  a  robust  endowment!  It  withstands 
change  and  time  and  many  a  coercive 
intimation. 

"  I  suppose,"  she  said  at  length,  quite 
humbly,  "it  is  natural  that  you  should  say 
that  to  me." 

"  You  asked  for  it,"  he  replied  tersely. 

Then  they  were  both  silent  for  a  space, 

88 


THE    ORDEAL 


looking  down  at  the  group  on  the  veranda 
of  the  bungalow. 

"  May  I  have  the  honor  and  pleasure  of 
your  company,  madam?  "  Briscoe  had  asked 
his  wife  with  fantastic  formality. 

"  You  may  not! "  she  rejoined  with  a  gay 
laugh. 

"And  why  not?" 

"  I  declare,  Ned,  you  live  so  much  up 
here  in  the  wilderness,  with  your  bears  and 
deer  and  catamounts  and  mountaineers,  that 
you  are  likely  to  forget  all  the  bienseance 
you  ever  knew.  Don't  you  perceive  that  my 
duties  as  chaperon  to  those  lovers  should  lie 
nearest  my  heart  ?  " 

Then  it  was  that  he  turned  and  cast  that 
comprehending  glance  at  the  two  in  the  dis 
tant  observatory.  Knowing  how  far  from 
Bayne's  mind  was  the  emotion,  the  intention, 
she  ascribed  to  him,  that  she  would  fain 
foster,  his  face  grew  rueful  and  overcast. 

89 


THE    ORDEAL 


He  shook  his  head  with  disconsolate  rebuke. 
"  Oh,  you  woman,  you! " 

But  the  reproach  did  not  strike  home. 
Mrs.  Briscoe  was  quite  satisfied  to  be  a 
woman,  and  was  avowedly  seeking  to  add  to 
the  normal  subtleties  of  this  state  the  spe 
cial  craft  of  a  matchmaker. 

Briscoe  desired  to  avoid  being  drawn  into 
any  confession  of  his  knowledge  of  Bayne's 
attitude  of  mind,  and,  aware  of  his  own  lack 
of  diplomacy,  sheered  off  precipitately  from 
the  subject.  He  turned,  beaming  anew,  to 
the  little  boy  who  was  looking  on,  cherubi 
cally  roseate,  at  the  sleek  mare  and  the  smart 
groom  at  her  bit. 

"  Then,  Archibald  Royston,  Esquire,  may 
I  hope  that  you  will  favor  me?  " 

Archibald  Royston,  Esquire,  suddenly  ap 
prehending  in  the  midst  of  his  absorption 
the  nature  of  the  invitation,  gave  two  elastic 
bounces  straight  up  and  down  expressive 

90 


THE    ORDEAL 


of  supreme  ecstasy;  then,  his  arms  out 
stretched,  he  began  to  run  wildly  up  and 
down  the  veranda,  looking  in  at  the  doors 
and  windows  as  he  passed,  seeking  his 
mother  and  her  permission. 

"  Oh!  "  cried  Lillian,  springing  to  her  feet 
as  she  watched  the  dumb-show  at  the  dis 
tance.  "  They  want  Archie  to  go  to  drive. 
Oh,  how  can  I  make  them  hear  me?  I 
am  sure  Ned  will  not  take  him  without 
permission." 

She  waved  her  hand,  but  the  distance  was 
obviously  too  great  for  the  signal  to  be  un 
derstood,  and  Briscoe's  attitude  was  doubt 
ful  and  perplexed.  There  was  no  time  to 
be  lost,  for  it  was  growing  late,  and  a  post 
ponement,  as  far  as  Archie  was  concerned, 
seemed  inevitable. 

"  Oh,  the  poor  little  fellow  will  be  so  dis 
appointed!  The  mare  will  be  off  before  I 
can  make  them  understand." 

91 


THE    ORDEAL 


*  Wait,"  said  Bayne  authoritatively.  He 
sprang  upon  the  bench,  and  in  this  com 
manding  position  placed  both  hands  mega 
phone-like  to  his  lips,  and  as  Archie  came 
running  along  the  veranda  again,  having 
descried  his  mother  in  the  distance,  and  with 
outstretched  arms  bleating  forth  his  eager, 
unheard  appeal,  Bayne  shouted,  his  voice 
clear  as  a  trumpet,  "  Yes,  you  may  go! " 

Not  until  he  was  once  more  on  the  floor 
of  the  observatory  did  he  realize  the  form 
of  the  permission,  and  what  relish  its  as 
sumption  of  authority  must  give  the  match 
making  Mrs.  Briscoe.  Apparently,  it  did 
not  impress  Lillian  as  they  stood  together 
and  she  smilingly  watched  the  group  at  the 
bungalow,  when  Archie  was  swung  to  a  seat 
in  the  dog-cart  beside  his  host.  It  seemed 
for  a  moment  that  they  were  off,  but  Mrs. 
Briscoe,  with  womanly  precaution,  be 
thought  herself  to  throw  a  wrap  into  the 

92 


THE    ORDEAL 


vehicle.  Throughout  the  day  the  close  cur 
taining  mists  had  resisted  all  stir  of  air, 
and  the  temperature  had  been  almost  sultry. 
Since  the  lifting  of  the  vapors,  the  currents 
of  the  atomsphere  were  flowing  freely  once 
more,  and  the  crystal  clarity  that  succeeded 
was  pervaded  by  an  increasing  chilliness. 
Before  nightfall  it  would  be  quite  cold,  and 
doubtless  the  smart  little  red  coat,  gay  with 
its  Persian  embroideries,  would  be  brought 
into  requisition. 

For  many  a  month  afterward,  whenever 
Lillian  closed  her  eyes,  she  saw  that  little 
red  coat.  Shutting  out  the  light,  the  world, 
brought  neither  rest  nor  darkness;  instead, 
the  long  flaring  vistas  of  gold  and  russet 
foliage  and  gray  crags  and  flaming  sunset 
remained  indelible,  and  amidst  it  all  one 
vivid  point  of  scarlet  hue  as  the  little  red 
coat  was  tossed  through  the  air  like  a  red 
leaf  flying  in  the  wind. 

93 


THE    ORDEAL 


Now,  as  all  unprescient  she  watched  the 
group,  she  thought  again  they  were  gone. 
But  no!  Fairy- foot  was  a  handful,  even 
for  so  capital  a  whip  as  Briscoe.  He  ob 
viously  considered  that  the  boy  would  be 
more  secure  stowed  on  the  floor  of  the  ve 
hicle,  half  under  the  soft  rug,  and  braced  by 
the  firm  foot  planted  on  either  side  against 
the  dash-board. 

"  How  considerate!  "  the  watching  mother 
thought  with  a  glow  of  gratitude,  noting  the 
caution. 

Suddenly  the  groom  leaped  aside;  the 
splendid  mare  sprang  forward;  there  was  a 
whirl  of  wheels,  a  whorl  of  rays  as  the 
gleaming  spokes  caught  the  sunshine,  and 
they  were  gone  indeed! 

"Oh!"  cried  Mrs.  Royston,  her  eyes 
bright  and  soft  with  tenderness,  "  what  a 
delight  for  Archie !  He  fairly  adores  to  go 
with  Ned.  He  owes  it  to  you  this  time.  You 
always  took  little  things  so  much  to  heart." 

94 


THE    ORDEAL 


"  And  great  ones,  too,  to  my  sorrow,"  he 
said. 

Her  face  changed.  She  was  trembling 
once  more  on  the  brink  of  tears.  She 
looked  up  at  him  with  earnest  appeal. 
"  I  wish,  Julian,  that  we  could  forget  the 
past." 

"  I  do  not,"  he  returned,  stern  and  grave, 
gazing  far  away  over  the  landscape. 

"  No,"  she  cried  in  a  sudden  transport  of 
painful  emotion;  "you  hold  it  against  me 
like  a  grudge — a  grudge  that  you  despise 
too  much  to  wreak  vengeance  for  its  sake. 
The  past  will  always  live  in  your  memory 
— you  hold  it  like  a  sword  to  my  throat. 
You  know  that  I  shall  always  feel  the  tor 
ture  of  its  edge,  but  in  your  magnanimity  " 
— with  sarcastic  emphasis — "  you  forbear  to 
thrust  in  the  murderous  blade." 

"  Good  God,  Lillian!  "  exclaimed  Bayne, 
losing  his  balance  altogether  at  the  accusa 
tion.  "  How  have  I  arrogated  magnani- 

95 


THE    ORDEAL 


mity,  or  anything  else?  I  assume  nothing! 
I  have  sought  to  efface  myself  while  here, 
as  far  as  might  be.  For  the  sake  of  all  con 
cerned — you,  the  Briscoes,  les  convenances, 
myself — I  could  not  run  away  at  the  sight 
of  you,  like  a  whipped  hound!  But  I  per 
ceive  my  error.  I  will  get  out  of  this  forth 
with.  Heaven  knows  it  has  been  anything 
but  a  pleasure!  " 

"  Don't  let  me  stand  between  you  and 
your  friends,"  she  sobbed,  weeping  now  in 
the  reaction  of  sentiment.  "  Don't  let  me 
drive  you  away." 

"  Why  not?  "  He  sought  relief  from  the 
pressure  of  the  circumstances  by  affecting  a 
lighter  tone.  "  By  your  own  account,  you 
have  stampeded  three  men  this  afternoon. 
I  shall  be  the  fourth!  The  fugitives  are 
counting  up  like  Falstaff 's  '  rogues  in  buck 
ram.'  Are  you  ready  to  go  now?  We  are 
leaving  Mrs.  Briscoe  alone." 

He  did  not  offer  to  assist  her  to  rise. 

96 


THE    ORDEAL 


Somehow,  he  could  resist  aught,  all,  save  the 
touch  of  that  little  hand.  It  brought  back 
to  him  as  nothing  else  the  girl  he  had  loved, 
and  who  had  loved  him.  Oh,  he  was  sure  of 
it  once!  This  woman  was  a  changeling  in 
some  mystic  sort — the  same  in  aspect,  yet 
how  alien  to  his  ideal  of  yore! 

She  did  not  seem  to  mark  the  lapse  of 
courtesy.  She  sat  still,  with  her  broad  gray 
hat  tilted  back  on  her  head,  a  soft  and  har 
monious  contrast  with  her  golden  hair  and 
roseate  face.  Her  ungloved  hands  were 
clasped  in  her  lap,  her  eyes  were  melancholy, 
meditative,  fixed  on  the  distant  mountains. 
"  I  wish  we  might  reach  some  mutual  calm 
thought  of  the  past,  like  the  tranquil  unim- 
passioned  brightness  of  the  close  of  this  trou 
bled,  threatening  day.  We  don't  care  now 
for  the  clouds  that  overcast  the  morning. 
To  attain  some  quiet  sentiment  of  forgive 
ness " 

7  97 


THE    ORDEAL 


"  I  ask  no  pardon,"  he  said  curtly. 

"  Oh!  "  —she  gazed  up  at  him  with  all  her 
soul  in  her  eyes — "  you  have  no  need!  " 

Had  she  been  warned  in  a  dream,  she 
could  have  compassed  no  surer  method  of 
reducing  his  pride  than  this  self-abnegat 
ing  generosity.  But  suddenly  an  alien  sound 
impinged  on  the  quietude.  The  sharp  note 
of  a  rifle  shattered  the  silence,  the  frag 
mentary  echoes  clamoring  back  from  the 
rocks  like  a  volley  of  musketry. 

"  How  startling  that  was !  "  she  exclaimed, 
turning  to  look  in  the  opposite  direction  over 
the  placid  valley  commanded  by  the  observa 
tory,  with  the  purple  mountains  encircling 
the  horizon.  "  How  this  clear  air  carries 
the  sound! " 

"  That  was  not  distant,"  Bayne  observed. 
"  Damp  air  is  a  better  conductor  of  sound 
than  a  clear  atmosphere." 

"  It  was  like  blasting,"  she  submitted. 


THE    ORDEAL 


"  It  was  a  rifle-shot,"  he  discriminated. 
"  A  still-hunter,  probably.  The  deer  come 
down  from  the  coverts  toward  evening  to 
drink.  Some  rock  may  have  fallen  along 
the  river-bank,  dislodged  by  the  concussion." 

A  sense  of  melancholy  was  in  the  air, 
gathering  with  the  gathering  darkness.  The 
light  was  fading  out  of  the  west,  and  the 
early  autumnal  dusk  was  at  hand.  Lillian 
was  sensible  of  an  accession  of  lassitude,  a 
realization  of  defeat  in  a  cause  which  she 
felt  now  it  was  futile  to  have  essayed.  Why 
should  he  forgive?  How  was  reparation 
possible?  She  could  not  call  back  the  Past 
— she  could  not  assuage  griefs  that  time  had 
worn  out  long  ago,  searing  over  the  wounds. 
She  was  quite  silent  as  she  rose  and  to 
gether  they  took  their  way  down  toward  the 
bungalow.  While  she  flagged  now  and 
again,  she  walked  without  assistance,  though 
he  kept  close  and  ready  at  her  side. 

99 


THE    ORDEAL 


Gladys  watched  their  progress  expec 
tantly,  but  her  face  fell  as  they  drew  near 
and  she  could  discern  their  listless  expres 
sion  and  manner.  She  did  not  await  their 
arrival,  but  turned,  disappointed,  within.  It 
was  already  time  to  dress  for  dinner,  the 
ladies  habitually  observing  this  formality, 
although  Briscoe  often  went  in  knickerbock 
ers  till  midnight.  Lillian  paused  on  the  ve 
randa  and  gazed  down  the  road,  winding 
away  into  the  dusky  red  flare  of  the  fading 
west,  for  the  drive  must  needs  be  short  in 
this  season  of  early  nightfall.  There  was 
no  sign  of  approach  along  its  smooth  and 
shadowy  curves,  and  at  the  end  of  the  long 
vista,  where  the  jagged  verges  of  crags  ser 
rated  the  serene  green  sky  a  star  shone,  white 
and  splendid,  amidst  the  vanishing  vermilion 
suffusions  of  the  sunset-tide. 


100 


y. 

IN  the  light  of  after  events,  one  might 
wonder  if  the  genial,  care-free  Edward  Bris- 
coe  remembered  any  detail  of  the  discarded 
arrangement  of  the  previous  evening  for  the 
transportation  of  his  transitory  guest, 
Frank  Dean,  to  Shaf tesville ;  if  he  realized 
that  at  the  moment  when  the  revenue  officer 
would  have  been  starting  on  the  journey,  as 
the  host  had  insistently  planned  it,  he  was 
himself  at  the  turn  of  the  road  and  just  be 
yond  the  jutting  crag;  if  he  divined  that  the 
vibrations  of  the  telephone  wire  had  be 
trayed  the  matter  to  a  crafty  listening  ear 
on  the  party-line  in  the  vacant  hotel  across 
the  ravine — or  was  the  time  too  short  for 
the  consideration?  Did  he  even  recognize 
the  significance  of  the  apparition  when  a 
swift,  erect  figure  stepped  openly  from  un 
der  the  shadowy  boughs  of  the  balsam  firs 
101 


THE    ORDEAL 


into  the  middle  of  the  road,  that  the  bead 
might  be  drawn  straight?  Did  he  appreci 
ate  that  the  flash  is  sooner  sped  than  the 
missile  and  know  his  fate  before  the  rifle- 
ball  crashed  into  his  skull! — or  was  the  in 
stant  all  inadequate  and  did  he  enter  eter 
nity  ere  he  was  well  quit  of  this  world? 

Frightened  by  the  sudden  appearance  of 
the  man  in  the  middle  of  the  thoroughfare, 
the  funnel-shaped  flare  of  light,  the  sharp 
report  of  the  weapon,  the  mare,  trotting  at 
full  speed,  swerved,  plunged,  backed,  the 
reins  hanging  loose  about  her  heels,  her 
driver  having  fallen  forward  upon  the  dash 
board.  The  dog-cart  began  to  careen  to  one 
side  as  the  animal  continued  to  back  and 
rear,  deterred  from  flight  by  the  figure  stand 
ing  still  directly  in  the  road.  Suddenly  she 
sought  to  turn  in  the  restricted  narrow  space, 
and  instantly  the  wheels  were  over  the  verge 

of  the  precipice. 

102 


THE   ORDEAL 


All  useless  were  the  convulsive  efforts  of 
the  creature  to  maintain  her  footing  on  the 
rocky  brink,  the  clutching  hoofs,  the  elastic 
bounds.  With  the  weight  of  the  vehicle, 
the  dead  man  leaning  heavily  on  the  dash 
board,  it  was  but  a  moment  of  suspense — 
then  like  a  thunderbolt  the  whole  went  crash 
ing  down  into  the  valley,  the  depth  to  be 
conjectured  by  the  considerable  interval  of 
time  before  the  sound  of  rending  boughs  and 
surging  foliage  in  the  air  gave  token  that  the 
wreck  was  hurtling  through  the  trees  on  the 
levels  a  thousand  feet  below. 

Two  other  men,  armed  with  rifles,  had 
sprung  from  among  the  firs  and  stood  aghast 
and  listening  on  the  verge  of  the  crag. 
There  was  no  longer  a  sound.  The  tragedy 
was  complete,  irrevocable,  before  a  word  was 
uttered. 

'T  war  n't  him!  "  gasped  the  youngest 
— hardly   more    than    a    boy   indeed.    His 

103 


THE    ORDEAL 


broad,  beardless  face  was  ghastly  white,  and 
his  lips  trembled  as  violently  as  his  shak 
ing  hand. 

"Lawd!  That  was  Edward  Briscoe! 
What  a  pity,  sure!  It  war  a  plumb  mis 
take,  Copenny,"  plained  an  elder  man, 
whose  rifle  had  not  been  fired.  There  was 
a  regretful  cadence  in  his  voice  akin  to  tears, 
and  he  held  his  long,  ragged  red  beard  in 
one  hand  as  he  peered  down  into  the  unre 
sponsive  depths. 

"  You  oughter  hev  made  sure  afore  ye 
teched  the  trigger,  Copenny,  that  he  war 
the  revenuer!  "  cried  the  young  fellow,  Al- 
vin  Holvey,  with  a  sudden  burst  of  petu 
lance,  despite  the  tragic  realization  ex 
pressed  in  his  quivering  face.  *  Ye  're  sech 
a  dead  shot  that  ye  could  hev  spared  a  min 
ute  ter  make  sure  of  the  revenuer,  afore  he 
could  hev  pulled  a  shooting-iron." 

The  man  who  had  fired  the  fatal  shot  had 

104 


THE    ORDEAL 


seemed  hitherto  stunned,  silent  and  motion 
less.  Now  he  exclaimed  in  self -justification: 
"  Why,  I  war  sure,  plumb  sure,  I  thought. 
We-uns  chased  that  man  Dean  clear  to 
Briscoe's  house  last  night — his  horse  went 
lame  and  he  got  lost  from  his  posse — but 
when  I  fund  he  hed  sheltered  with  Briscoe, 
we-uns  went  into  the  empty  hotel  ter  wait 
and  watch  fur  him  ter  go.  Not  knowin'  how 
many  men  Briscoe  hev  got  thar,  we-uns 
didn't  want  ter  tackle  the  house.  An' 
whilst  at  the  hotel  the  Briscoes'  tellyfun-bell 
rung — ye  know  it's  on  a  party  line  with  the 
hotel  connection — an'  I  tuk  down  the  thing 
they  call  the  receiver  an'  listened.  An'  that's 
jes'  the  way  Briscoe  planned  it:  ter  send 
the  revenuer  down  an  hour  by  sun  with  the 
dog-cart  an'  his  fine  mare.  Shucks!  Ef 
Briscoe  war  minded  ter  step  into  Frank 
Dean's  shoes,  he  hev  jes'  hed  ter  take  what 
war  savin'  up  fur  the  revenuer,  that's  all!  " 

105 


THE    ORDEAL 


Once  more  he  relapsed  into  silent  staring 
at  the  brink,  balked,  dumfounded,  and 
amazed. 

Suddenly  he  seemed  to  respond  to  some 
inward  monition  of  danger,  of  responsibility. 
"  I  be  enough  of  a  dead  shot  ter  stop  all  that 
dad-burned  talk  of  yourn!"  he  drawled  in 
a  languid,  falsetto,  spiritless  voice,  but  with 
an  odd  intimation  of  a  deadly  intention. 
'  Ye  both  done  the  deed  the  same  ez  ef  ye 
bed  pulled  the  trigger;  ye  holped  ter  plan 
it,  an'  kem  along  ter  see  it  done  an'  lend  a 
hand  ef  needed.  Ye  both  done  the  deed 
the  same  ez  me — that's  the  law,  an'  ye  know 
it.  That  is  sure  the  law  in  Tennessee." 

"  Waal,  now,  Phineas  Copenny,  't  warn't 
right  nor  fair  ter  we-uns  ter  clumsy  it  up 
so,"  protested  the  young  mountaineer.  "  Ef 
it  hed  been  the  revenuer,  I'd  hev  nare  word 
ter  say.  I'd  smack  my  lips,  fur  the  deed 
would  taste  good  ter  me,  an'  I'd  stand  ter 

106 


THE    ORDEAL 


it.  But  this  hyar  Mr.  Briscoe — why,  we- 
uns  hev  not  even  got  a  gredge  agin  him." 

"  No,  nor  nobody  else  that  ever  I  hearn 
of.  Mr.  Briscoe  war  a  plum  favorite,  far 
an'  nigh,"  said  old  Jubal  Clenk,  the  eldest 
of  the  party.  "  But  shucks!  "  he  continued, 
with  a  change  of  tone  and  the  evident  in 
tention  of  preserving  harmony  among  the 
conspirators.  "  'Twar  jes'  an  accident,  an' 
that's  what  it  will  pass  fur  among  folks 
ginerally.  Mr.  Briscoe's  mare  skeered  an' 
shied  an'  backed  off'n  the  bluff — that  air 
whut  the  country-side  will  think.  Whenst 
his  body  is  fund  his  head  will  be  mashed  ter 
a  jelly  by  the  fall,  an'  nobody  kin  say  he 
kem  otherwise  by  his  death — jes'  an  acci 
dent  in  drivin'  a  skittish  horse-critter." 

Whether  it  was  a  sound,  whether  it  was 
a  movement,  none  of  the  group  was  accu 
rately  aware.  It  may  have  been  merely  that 
mesmeric  influence  of  an  intently  concen- 

107 


THE    ORDEAL 


trated  gaze  that  caused  them  suddenly  to 
turn.  They  beheld  standing  in  the  road — 
and  they  flinched  at  the  sight — a  witness  to 
all  the  proceedings.  A  small,  a  simple,  ob 
ject  to  excite  such  abject  terror  as  blanched 
the  faces  of  the  group — a  little  boy,  a  mere 
baby,  staring  at  the  men  with  wide  blue 
eyes  and  unconjecturable  emotions.  He  had 
doubtless  been  enveloped  in  the  rug  which 
had  fallen  from  the  vehicle  as  it  first  ca 
reened  in  the  road,  and  which  now  lay  among 
the  wayside  weeds.  His  toggery  of  the  ju 
venile  mode  made  him  seem  smaller  than  he 
really  was;  his  scarlet  cloth  coat,  embroid 
ered  in  Persian  effects,  was  thick  and  ren 
dered  his  figure  chubby  of  aspect;  his  feet 
and  legs  were  encased  in  bulky  white  leg- 
gins;  he  wore  a  broad  white  beaver  hat,  its 
crown  encircled  by  a  red  ribbon,  and  his  in 
fantile  jauntiness  of  attire  was  infinitely  in 
congruous  with  the  cruel  tragedy  and  his 

108 


THE    ORDEAL 


piteous  plight.  Although  perhaps  stunned 
at  first  by  the  shock  of  the  fall,  he  was  ob 
viously  uninjured,  and  stood  sturdily  erect 
and  vigilant.  He  looked  alert,  inquiring, 
anxious,  resolved  into  wonder,  silently  await 
ing  developments.  His  eyes  shifted  from 
one  speaker  to  another  of  the  strange  party. 

"Lord!  He'll  tell  it  all!"  exclaimed 
Alvin  Holvey,  appalled  and  in  hopeless 
dismay. 

"  Naw,  he  won't,  now,"  snarled  Copenny 
rancorously.  '  Thar  will  be  a  way  ter  stop 
his  mouth." 

"  Why,  he  is  too  leetle  ter  talk.  He  don't 
sense  nuthin',"  cried  old  Clenk,  with  an  eager 
note  of  expostulation,  attesting  that  he  was 
human,  after  all.  "  Don't  do  nuthin'  else 
rash,Phineas  Copenny, fur  the  love  of  God!" 
Jubal  Clenk  dropped  on  one  knee  in 
front  of  the  little  boy,  and  the  two  were  in 
scrutably  eyeing  each  other  at  close  quar- 

109 


THE    ORDEAL 


ters.  "  Hello,  Bubby!  Whar's  yer  tongue? 
Cat  got  it?"  he  asked  in  a  grandfatherly 
fashion,  while  the  other  men  looked  on, 
grim  and  anxious,  at  this  effort  to  gauge  the 
mentality  of  the  child  and  their  consequent 
danger  from  him. 

Still  staring,  the  little  boy  began  slowly 
to  shake  his  head  in  negation. 

"What's  yer  name,  Squair?  What's  yer 
name?" 

But  the  child  still  stared  silently,  either 
uncomprehending  or  perceiving  that  his 
safety  lay  in  incompetency. 

Clenk  rose  to  his  feet  in  sudden  relief. 
"  He  don't  sense  nuthin' !  He's  too  little  to 
talk.  He  can't  tell  wuth  shucks!  We  will 
jes'  leave  him  hyar  in  the  road,  an'  the  folks 
that  find  what's  down  thar  in  the  valley  will 
find  him  too.  I  wonder  somebody  ain't 
passed  a'ready.  An'  sure  we-uns  oughter  be 

a-travellinV 

110 


THE    ORDEAL 


But  Holvey  revolted  against  this  offhand 
assumption  of  confidence.  He  made  a  sup 
plemental  effort  on  his  own  account.  "  Why 
don't  ye  tell  yer  name,  Bubby?"  he  asked 
cajolingly. 

"  'Tause,"  the  child  answered  abruptly, 
"  I  tan't  talk." 

Copenny  burst  into  sudden  sardonic 
laughter,  with  wondrous  little  mirth  in  the 
tones,  and  the  other  miscreants  were  ob 
viously  disconcerted  and  disconsolate,  while 
the  small  schemer,  whose  craft  had  failed 
midway,  looked  affrighted  and  marvelling 
from  one  to  another,  at  a  loss  to  interpret 
the  mischance. 

"  Dadburn  it!  "  said  the  mercurial  Clenk, 
as  depressed  now  as  a  moment  earlier  he 
had  been  easily  elated.  "  We-uns  will  jes' 
hev  ter  take  him  along  of  us  an'  keep  him 
till  he  furgits  all  about  it." 

"An'  when  will  ye  be  sure  o'  that?" 
111 


THE    ORDEAL 


sneered  Copenny.  "  He  is  as  tricky  as  a 
young  fox." 

Half  stunned  by  the  tremendous  import 
of  the  tragedy  he  had  witnessed,  the  child 
scarcely  entered  into  its  true  significance  in 
his  concern  for  his  own  plight.  He  realized 
that  he  was  being  riven  from  his  friends,  his 
own,  and  made  a  feeble  outcry  and  futile 
resistance,  now  protesting  that  he  would  tell 
nothing,  and  now  piteously  assuring  his  cap 
tors  that  he  could  not  talk,  while  they  gath 
ered  him  up  in  the  rug,  which  covered  head 
and  feet,  even  the  flaunting  finery  of  his 
big,  white  beaver  hat. 

In  the  arms  of  the  grandfatherly  Clenk 
he  was  carried  along  the  bridle-path  in  the 
dulling  sunset,  and  presently  dusk  was  de 
scending  on  the  austere  mountain  wilder 
ness  ;  the  unmeasured  darkness  began  to  per 
vade  it,  and  silence  was  its  tenant.  As  the 
party  went  further  and  further  into  the 
112 


THE    ORDEAL 


woods,  the  struggles  of  the  child  grew  fitful ; 
soon  he  was  still,  and  at  last — for  even  Care 
must  needs  have  pity  for  his  callow  estate — 
he  was  asleep,  forgetting  in  slumber  for  a 
time  all  the  horror  that  he  had  seen  and 
suffered. 

But  when  he  came  to  himself  he  was  a  shiv 
ering,  whimpering  bundle  of  homesick  grief. 
He  wanted  his  mother — he  would  listen  to 
naught  but  assurances  that  they  were  go 
ing  to  her  right  away — right  away!  It  was 
a  strange  place  wherein  he  found  himself — 
all  dark,  save  for  flaring  torches.  He  could 
not  understand  his  surroundings,  and  indeed 
he  did  not  try.  He  only  rubbed  his  eyes  with 
his  fists  and  said  again  and  again  that  he 
wanted  his  mother.  He  was  seated  on  a 
small  stone  pillar,  a  stalagmite  in  a  limestone 
cavern,  where  there  were  many  such  pillars 
and  pendants  of  like  material  hanging  from 
the  roof,  all  most  dimly  glimpsed  in  the 

8  113 


THE    ORDEAL 


torch-light  against  an  infinitude  of  black 
ness.  The  men  who  had  brought  him  hither, 
and  others  whom  he  had  not  heretofore  seen, 
were  busied  about  a  dismantled  stone  fur 
nace,  gathering  up  such  poor  belongings 
as  had  escaped  the  wreckings  of  the  revenue 
force.  Now  and  then  a  glitter  from  the 
fragments  of  the  copper  still  and  the  sec 
tions  of  the  coils  of  the  worm  marked  the 
course  their  ravages  had  taken,  and  all  the 
chill,  cavernous  air  was  filled  with  the  sickly 
odor  of  singlings  and  the  fermenting  mash 
adhering  to  the  broken  staves  of  the  great 
riven  tanks,  called  the  beer-tubs.  The  moon 
light  came  into  this  dark  place  at  the  fur 
ther  end,  for  this  was  one  of  the  many  caves 
among  the  crags  that  overhang  the  Little 
Tennessee  River,  and  once,  looking  toward 
the  jagged  portal,  Archie  saw  a  sail,  white 
in  the  beams  on  the  lustrous  current,  and 
asked  if  they  were  going  in  that  boat  to  his 

114 


THE    ORDEAL 


mother,  for,  he  said,  he  knew  that  she  did 
not  live  in  this  cellar. 

"  Yes,  yes,"  Clenk  assured  him.  They 
were  making  ready  to  leave  now,  though  not 
in  that  boat.  "An'  look-a-hyar!  What  a 
pretty!  Ye  kin  hev  this  ter  play  with  ef 
ye  will  be  good." 

He  led  the  little  boy  up  to  a  tallow  dip 
blazing  on  the  head  of  a  barrel,  that  he 
might  have  light  to  examine  the  token.  It 
was  a  small  bit  of  the  cavernous  efflorescence, 
which,  growing  on  subterranean  walls,  takes 
occasionally  definite  form,  some  specimens 
resembling  a  lily,  others  being  like  a  rose; 
the  child  tried  feebly  to  be  grateful,  and  put 
it  with  care  into  one  of  the  pockets  of  his 
little  red  coat — his  pockets  in  which  he  had 
once  felt  such  plethora  of  pride! 


VI. 

WHEN  next  he  saw  the  river  the  lunar 
lustre  had  dulled  on  the  currents.  No 
more  the  long  lines  of  shimmering  light 
trailing  off  into  the  deep  shadow  of  the 
wooded  banks,  no  more  the  tremulous  re 
flection  of  the  moon,  swinging  like  some 
supernal  craft  in  the  great  lacustrine  sweep 
where  the  stream  broadens  in  rounding  the 
point.  Now  a  filmy  veil  was  over  all,  yet 
the  night  was  so  fine  that  the  light  filtered 
through  the  mist,  and  objects  were  still  dis 
cernible,  though  only  vaguely  visible,  like 
the  furnishings  of  a  dream.  A  rowboat  was 
rocking  on  the  ripples  among  the  boulders 
at  the  water's  edge.  As  the  child  made  the 
perilous  descent  in  the  practised  clasp  of 
the  grandfatherly  Clenk,  he  could  look  up 
and  see  the  jagged  portal  of  the  cave  he 
had  left,  high  above  the  river,  though  not 

116 


THE    ORDEAL 


so  high  as  the  great,  tall  deciduous  trees 
waving  their  lofty  boughs  on  the  summit  of 
the  cliffs.  Certain  grim,  silent,  gaunt  fig 
ures,  grotesquely  contorted  in  the  mist,  the 
child's  wide  blue  eyes  traced  out,  as  the 
other  moonshiners  climbed  too  down  the 
rugged  face  of  the  crag,  all  burdened  with 
bundles  of  varying  size  and  unimaginable 
contents — food,  clothing,  or  such  appliances 
of  their  craft  as  the  hurried  revenue  raiders 
had  chanced  to  overlook.  The  little  boy 
must  have  contended  with  fear  in  this  awe 
some  environment,  the  child  of  gentlest  nur 
ture,  but  he  thought  he  was  going  to  his 
mother,  or  perchance  he  could  not  have  sub 
mitted  with  such  docility,  so  uncomplain 
ingly.  Only  when  they  had  reached  the 
rocky  marge  of  the  water  and  he  had  been 
uncoiled  from  the  rug  and  set  upon  his  feet 
did  he  lift  his  voice  in  protest. 

Clenk   had   stepped   into   the   boat   and 

117 


THE    ORDEAL 


seated  himself,  the  oars  rattling  smartly  in 
the  rowlocks,  the  sound  sharp  on  the  misty 
air,  as  he  laid  hold  on  them.  "  So  far,  so 
good,"  he  exclaimed  cheerily. 

"Won't  they  be  fur  trackin'  of  him?" 
One  of  the  moonshiners,  whom  the  child 
had  not  seen  before,  seemed  disposed  to  re 
buke  this  easy  optimism. 

"What  fur?  They  will  think  Bubby 
went  over  the  bluff  too,"  Clenk  declared 
definitely. 

"  There's  nuthin'  ter  show  fur  it,  though," 
Copenny  joined  the  opposite  opinion. 

:c  Nuthin'  needed  in  that  mixtry  of  horse 
flesh  an'  human  carcass  an'  splintered  wood 
and  leather,"  argued  Clenk. 

"  Yes,  they  will  hev  ter  gather  up  them 
remains  in  a  shovel,"  acquiesced  Holvey. 

The  shadowy  form  of  the  doubter  who 
had  introduced  the  subject,  thick-set,  stoop- 
shouldered,  showed  in  its  attitude  that  he 

118 


THE    ORDEAL 


was  lowering  and  ill  at  ease.  '  Waal,  you- 
uns  hev  made  a  powerful  botch  of  the  simple 
little  trick  of  drawing  a  bead  on  a  revenuer 
anyhow.  Takin'  one  man  fur  another — I 
never  dreamed  o'  the  beat !  Copenny  war  so 
sure  o'  the  man  an'  the  mare !  I  never  pur- 
tended  to  know  either.  Seems  ter  me  ye 
oughter  be  willin'  ter  lis'n  ter  reason  now." 

"  Waal,  let's  hear  reason,  then,"  Co- 
penny's  sardonic  falsetto  tones  rasped  on  the 
air,  and  the  little  head  under  the  broad 
white,  gayly  beribboned  hat  turned  up  at 
tentively,  as  the  child  stood  so  low  down 
among  the  big  booted  feet  of  the  armed 
moonshiners. 

'  Why,  how  easy  it  would  hev  been  ter 
throw  su'thin'  over  the  bluff "  the  coun 
sellor  began. 

"  Good  Lord!  "  Clenk  exclaimed  angrily, 
from  his  seat  in  the  boat,  "  ain't  ye 
got  no  human  feelin's,  Jack  Drann?  We- 

119 


THE    ORDEAL 


uns  never  went  ter  shed  the  innercent  blood 
nohow.  We-uns  war  loaded  fur  that  tricky 
revenuer,  an'  Edward  Briscoe  war  kilt  by 
mistake.  An'  now  ye  ter  be  talkin'  'bout 
heavin'  the  leetle,  harmless  deedie  over  the 
bluff!" 

"  What  ails  yer  hearin'?  "  retorted  Drann 
angrily.  "  I  said  suihirf — his  coat,  his  hat 
— throw  su'ihin*  over,  ter  make  folks  think 
he  war  in  the  accident,  too — mare  run  away 
and  the  whole  consarn  flopped  bodaciously 
over  the  bluff!  They  will  scour  the  kentry 
fur  Bubby  ef  thar  ain't  su'thin'  positive  ter 
make  them  sure  ez  he  be  dead,  too." 

Jubal  Clenk,  so  readily  cast  down,  medi 
tated  dolorously,  as  he  sat  still  in  the  boat, 
on  this  signal  omission  in  the  chain  of  evi 
dence.  "  It  would  sure  hev  made  it  all  'pear 
a  heap  mo'  like  an  accident,"  he  said  discon 
solately.  Then,  with  suddenly  renewing 
hopefulness,  "  But  't  ain't  too  late  yet — 

120 


THE    ORDEAL 


good  many  hours  'fore  daylight.  We  kin 
send  the  coat  an'  hat  back  an'  toss  them  over 
the  bluff  long  before  it  is  light  good." 

Thus  it  was  that  the  moonshiners  laid 
hold  on  the  boy's  simple  possessions,  and 
thus  it  was  that  Archie  fought  and  contended 
for  his  own.  He  clutched  at  the  cuffs  as 
Copenny  dragged  the  sleeves  over  his 
wrists ;  he  held  on  to  his  hat  with  both  hands, 
despite  the  grip  of  the  elastic  under  his 
chin,  and  he  stamped  and  screamed  in  a  man 
ner  that  he  had  heretofore  known  to  inspire 
awe  and  respect  in  the  nursery  and  disarm 
authority.  Alack,  it  had  lost  its  efficacy 
now!  Most  of  the  men  took  no  notice  what 
ever  of  his  callow  demonstrations  of  wrath, 
though  old  Clenk,  with  a  curious  duality  of 
mental  process,  laughed  indulgently  at  his 
antics  of  infantile  rage,  despite  his  own  ab 
sorptions,  his  sense  of  danger,  his  smart  of 
loss  and  wreck  of  prospects. 
121 


THE    ORDEAL 


It  was  Copenny  who  undertook  to  carry 
the  coat  and  rug  back  to  the  spot,  and  they 
willingly  agreed  to  this  on  the  score  that 
he  knew  best  the  precise  locality  where  the 
catastrophe  had  befallen.  Secretly,  how 
ever,  he  had  resolved  not  to  rejoin  his  com 
panions  at  a  named  rendezvous,  for  he  had 
bethought  himself  that  if  all  fled  but  him, 
remaining  in  his  accustomed  home,  he  would 
necessarily  avoid  implication  in  the  crime 
with  them.  The  boat  had  been  provisioned 
with  a  view  to  their  escape  by  water  when 
the  ambush  of  the  revenue  officer  had  been 
planned,  and  they  were  now  congratulat 
ing  themselves  on  their  foresight  as  they 
prepared  to  embark.  Clenk  had  an  ill-sa 
vored  story  to  tell  of  the  apprehension  of 
a  malefactor  through  the  coercion  of  hunger, 
constrained  to  stop  and  beg  a  meal  as  he 
fled  from  justice,  and  Drann  had  known  a 
man  whose  neck  was  forfeited  by  the  neces- 

122 


THE    ORDEAL 


sity  of  robbing  a  hen-roost,  the  cackling 
poultry  in  this  instance  as  efficient  in  the 
cause  of  law  and  order  as  the  geese  that 
saved  Rome.  Copenny,  listening  sar 
donically,  could  not  be  thankful  for  such 
small  favors.  His  venture  as  a  moonshiner 
at  all  events  was,  so  to  speak,  a  side  line  of 
employ.  He  was  trained  a  blacksmith,  and 
had  a  pretty  fair  stake  in  the  world,  accord 
ing  to  the  rating  of  a  working-man  of  this 
region,  now  in  jeopardy  of  total  loss.  The 
rest  had  nothing  to  lose,  and  as  ever  and 
anon  they  fell  to  canvassing  the  opportu 
nities  of  beginning  anew  in  a  fresh  place  the 
dubious  struggle  for  bare  subsistence,  his 
determination  to  slip  free  of  them  was  con 
firmed.  The  morrow  would  see  him  in  his 
appointed  place — nay,  he  perceived  a  sure 
means  of  hoodwinking  any  possible  suspi 
cion  of  the  authorities  by  finding  a  conspicu 
ous  position  in  the  searching  parties  who 

123 


THE    ORDEAL, 


would  go  out,  he  knew,  as  the  night  wore 
on  and  the  alarm  was  given  that  the  owner 
of  the  bungalow  had  not  returned. 

The  boat  with  the  others  embarked  was 
far  up  the  river  before  the  child  had  ceased 
to  sob  and  plain  for  his  precious  gear.  He 
began  to  listen  curiously  to  the  splash  of 
the  oars  as  they  marked  time  and  the  boat 
rode  the  waves  elastically.  There  was  no 
other  sound  in  all  the  night-bound  world, 
save  once  the  crisp,  sharp  bark  of  a  fox 
came  across  the  water  from  the  dense,  dark 
riparian  forests.  The  mists  possessed  all  the 
upper  atmosphere,  but  following  the  boat 
were  white  undiscriminated  presentments 
on  the  sombre  surface  of  the  river,  elusive 
in  the  vapor  and  suggestive  of  something 
swimming  in  pursuit.  Once  Archie  pointed 
his  mittened  hand  at  this  foaming  wake,  but 
the  question  died  on  his  lips  as  the  dank 
autumnal  air  buffeted  his  chill  cheek.  He 

124 


THE    ORDEAL 


shivered  in  his  thin  little  white  linen  dress, 
meant  for  indoor  wear  only,  with  its  smart 
red  leather  belt  clasped  low  and  loose  about 
it,  and  the  hardship  of  cold  and  hunger 
tamed  him.  He  was  glad  to  nestle  close  to 
the  pasty-faced  Holvey,  who  had  not  yet 
recovered  the  normal  glow  of  complexion, 
and  to  stick  his  yellow  head  under  the  moon 
shiner's  arm  for  warmth  while  he  steered 
the  craft.  Indeed,  when  the  boat  was  at 
length  run  into  one  of  the  small,  untenanted 
islands  and  the  party  disembarked,  the  little 
boy  began  to  chirp  genially  and  to  laugh 
for  joy  as  a  fire  was  kindled  amidst  the 
rocks  and  brush  of  the  interior,  invisible 
from  the  shores.  He  basked  in  the  blaze  and 
grew  pink  and  gay,  and  even  sought  to  ini 
tiate  a  game  of  peek-a-boo  from  behind  his 
white  mittens  with  one  of  the  ruffians;  and 
although  a  bit  dashed  when  the  surly,  ab 
sorbed  eyes  stared  unresponsively  at  him,  he 

125 


THE    ORDEAL 


plucked  up  spirit  to  ask  if  they  were  going 
to  have  supper,  and  to  say  that  he  wanted 
some,  and  that  he  was  a  very  good  boy. 

"  Breakfast,  Bub — this  is  the  'tother  end 
of  the  day,"  Clenk  explained,  preparing  to 
broil  slices  of  meat  on  the  coals.  There  was 
soon  a  johnny-cake  baked  on  a  board  set  up 
before  the  flames,  but  the  pork  was  evi 
dently  a  new  proposition  to  the  small  cap 
tive,  and  although  he  eyed  it  greedily  he 
could  make  no  compact  with  it.  Now  and 
again  he  licked  with  a  grimace  of  distaste 
the  unsavory  chunk  given  him,  and  desisted, 
to  watch  with  averse  curiosity  the  working 
jaws  of  the  men  and  the  motion  of  the  mus 
cles  in  their  temples  as  they  hastily  gobbled 
the  coarse  fare  which  they  cut  with  their 
clasp-knives.  The  fire  duplicated  their  num 
ber  with  their  shadows,  and  occasionally  he 
eyed  these  semblances  speculatively  as  they 
stretched  on  the  sandy  ground  or  skulked  in 

126 


THE    ORDEAL 


the  underbrush  behind  their  unconscious 
principals.  Once  or  twice  he  lifted  his  own 
arm  with  an  alert  gesture  in  imitative  en 
ergy,  and  looked  over  his  shoulder  at  his 
squat  little  image,  to  note  its  obedience  to 
his  behest.  One  might  have  thought  he  had 
put  the  greater  part  of  the  fat  meat  in 
smears  about  his  rosy  cheeks  and  fresh  baby 
lips,  and  certainly  the  pleated  bosom  of  his 
immaculate  linen  suit  had  received  a  gen 
erous  remembrance.  The  remnant  was  still 
in  his  hand  when  he  began  to  nod  in  the 
drowsy  influences  of  the  heat  of  the  fire;  he 
had  collapsed  into  insensibility  long  before 
the  coals  were  raked  apart  to  dull  and  die. 
He  had  no  knowledge  of  the  fact  when  he 
was  borne  away  by  Holvey,  who  had  been 
delegated  to  assume  charge  of  him,  and  who 
sulked  in  disaffection  under  the  responsibility 
and  his  doubts  of  the  success  of  their  plan. 
Once  more  in  the  boat,  the  chill  of  the 

127 


THE  ORDEAL 


dank  river  atmosphere  awakened  little 
Archie.  He  sent  forth  a  peevish,  imperative 
call,  "  Mamma!  "  so  shrill  and  constraining, 
reaching  so  far  across  the  dark  water,  that 
a  hand  before  his  lips  smothered  its  itera 
tion  in  his  throat.  "Bee-have!"  Holvey 
hissed  in  his  ear,  and  as  the  child  struggled 
into  a  sitting  posture  his  involuntary  bleat, 
"  Mamma ! "  was  so  meekened  by  fear  and 
plaintive  recollection  and  submissive  help 
lessness  that  it  could  scarcely  have  been  dis 
tinguished  a  boat's  length  distant. 

The  moon  was  down,  but  the  morning  star 
was  in  the  sky,  splendid,  eloquent,  charged 
with  a  subtle  message  expressed  in  no  other 
sidereal  scintillation,  heralding  not  only  the 
dawn,  but  palpitant  with  the  prophecy  and 
the  assurance  of  eternal  day.  There  was  a 
sense  of  light  about  the  eastern  mountains, 
albeit  so  heavily  looming.  And  suddenly, 
all  at  once,  the  faces  of  the  shadowy  men 

128 


THE    ORDEAL 


who  had  borne  him  hither  were  fully  re 
vealed,  and  as  he  sat  and  shivered  in  his 
thin  little  dress  he  eyed  them,  first  one  for 
a  long  time,  and  then  another,  and  he  shiv 
ered  throughout  with  a  fear  more  chilly  than 
the  cold.  Perhaps  it  was  well  for  the  equi 
librium  of  his  reason  that  fear  so  acute  could 
not  continue.  He  presently  began  to  cough, 
and  when  he  sought  to  reply  to  a  question 
he  could  only  wheeze.  An  infantile  captive 
wields  certain  coercions  to  fair  treatment  pe 
culiar  to  nonage.  The  moonshiners  had 
suddenly  before  their  eyes  the  menace  of 
croup  or  pneumonia,  and,  to  do  them  jus 
tice,  the  destruction  of  the  child  had  not  been 
part  of  their  project.  There  ensued  gruff 
criminations  and  recriminations  among  them 
before  the  baby  was  rolled  up  in  a  foul  old 
horse-blanket,  and  a  dose  of  the  pure  moon 
shine  whisky,  tempered  with  river  water, 
was  poured  down  his  throat.  It  may  have 

9  129 


THE    ORDEAL 


been  the  slumber  induced  by  this  potent 
elixir,  or  it  may  have  been  the  effects  of 
fever,  but  he  was  not  conscious  when  they 
reached  the  forks  of  the  Tennessee  and  were 
pulling  up  the  Oconalufty  River.  He  only 
knew  vaguely  when  once  more  they  had 
disembarked,  though  now  and  then  he 
sought  vainly  to  rouse  himself  to  the  inci 
dents  of  a  long  march.  Finally  he  was  still 
and  silent  so  long  in  old  Clenk's  arms  as  to 
excite  immediate  fears.  Now  and  again  as 
they  forged  along  at  the  extreme  limit  of 
their  endurance  they  took  the  time  to  shake 
up  the  poor  baby  and  seek  by  suggestion  to 
induce  him  to  say  that  he  felt  better.  But 
his  head  had  begun  to  roll  heavily  from  side  to 
side,  and  they  could  not  disguise  from  them 
selves  that  he  looked  at  them  with  uncompre 
hending  eyes,  and,  left  to  himself ,  sank  imme 
diately  into  stupor  that  simulated  slumber. 
"  Fellows,"  said  old  Clenk  drearily,  "  I 

130 


THE    ORDEAL 


believe  this  leetle  chap  be  agoin'  ter  make  a 
die  of  it!" 

But  he  was  still  alive  the  following  morn 
ing  when  the  chill,  clouded  day  broke,  and 
a  happy  thought  occurred  to  old  Clenk. 
Throughout  his  illness  the  child  had  instinc 
tively  refused  the  coarse  food  proffered 
him,  and  this  was  brought  anew  to  their 
notice  when  they  paused  to  eat  their  scanty 
rations  in  a  deep,  secluded  dell.  A  stream 
ran  foaming,  crystal  clear,  amidst  great 
rocks  hemming  it  in  on  every  side,  save 
where  a  jungle  of  undergrowth  made  close 
to  the  verge.  A  sudden  sound  from  these 
bosky  recesses  set  every  nerve  of  the  fugi 
tives  a-quiver.  Only  the  tinkle  of  a  cow 
bell,  keen  and  clear  in  the  chill  rare  air! 
There  was  the  exchange  of  a  sheepish  grin 
as  the  tones  were  recognized,  when  suddenly 
Clenk  arose,  a  light  as  of  inspiration  on  his 
dull  old  face.  "  Soo,  cow,  soo!"  he  called 

131 


THE    ORDEAL 


softly;  then  listened  intently  for  a  respon 
sive  stir  in  the  bushes.  A  muttered  low — 
and  he  pressed  into  the  covert  in  the  direc 
tion  of  the  sound.  The  docile  animal  lifted 
her  head  at  an  approach,  then  calmly  fell 
a-grazing  again.  She  let  down  her  milk 
readily,  though  looking  over  her  shoulder 
questioningly  during  the  process,  for  Clenk 
was  no  practised  hand.  He  contrived,  how 
ever,  to  fill  a  "  tickler  "  in  which  there  was 
a  small  residue  of  whisky,  which  possibly 
aided  the  efficacy  of  the  milk,  for  the  child 
was  perceptibly  revived  after  the  first 
draught  was  forced  down  his  throat,  and 
when  an  hour  or  two  afterward  the  bottle 
was  put  to  his  lips  he  voluntarily  drank  a 
few  swallows  with  obvious  relish. 

"Ye  leetle  old  toper,"  cried  Clenk  de 
lightedly,  waxing  jocose  in  his  relief,  "  ye 
been  swindling  me!  Ye  hev  been  playin' 
sick  to  trick  me  out  'n  this  fine  milk  punch! " 

132 


THE    ORDEAL 


Archie  did  not  comprehend  the  banter, 
but  he  smiled  feebly  in  response  to  the  jo 
vial  tone,  and  after  a  time  babbled  a  good 
deal  in  a  faint  little  voice  about  a  train  of 
steam-cars,  exponent  of  a  distant  civiliza 
tion,  that  with  a  roar  of  wheels  and  clangor 
of  machinery  and  scream  of  whistles  and 
clouds  of  smoke  went  thundering  through 
the  wild  and  wooded  country.  To  the  old 
man's  delight,  he  sought  to  lift  himself  to 
a  sitting  posture  in  Clenk's  arms,  and  asked 
if  they  were  to  travel  soon  on  the  "  choo- 
choo  train."  Yes,  indeed,  he  was  assured, 
and  he  seemed  to  experience  a  sort  of  grati 
fied  pride  in  the  prospect.  With  this  fiction 
in  mind,  he  presently  fell  into  a  deep  and  re 
freshing  slumber. 

Suddenly  the  child  was  all  himself  again, 
glad,  hopeful,  expectant,  with  the  sense  of 
being  once  more  under  a  roof,  touched  by 
a  woman's  hand.  Then  he  looked  keenly 

133 


THE    ORDEAL 


into  the  face  before  him — such  a  strange 
face !  He  was  tempted  to  cry  out  in  terror ; 
but  the  mind  is  plastic  in  early  youth:  he 
had  learned  the  lesson  that  now  his  pro 
tests  and  shrieks  availed  naught.  A  strange 
face,  of  a  copper  hue,  with  lank  black  hair 
hanging  straight  on  both  sides,  a  high  nose, 
a  wide,  flat,  thin-lipped  mouth,  and  great, 
dark,  soft  eyes  amidst  many  wrinkles.  He 
could  not  have  thus  enumerated  its  charac 
teristics,  nor  even  described  its  impression 
on  his  mind ;  but  he  realized  its  fundamental 
difference  from  all  the  faces  he  had  ever 
seen,  and  its  unaccustomed  aspect  appalled 
him.  He  was  petrified  by  his  uncompre 
hending  amazement  and  an  intensity  of  grief 
that  was  not  meet  for  his  tender  years  in  this 
extreme.  He  could  hardly  realize  his  own 
identity.  He  did  not  seem  himself,  this  child 
on  the  floor  in  front  of  a  dull  wood  fire, 
squalid,  wrapped  in  an  old  horse-blanket, 

134 


THE    ORDEAL 


facing  this  queer  woman,  sitting  opposite 
him  on  the  uneven  flagging  of  the  hearth. 

All  at  once  his  fortitude  gave  way.  He 
broke  forth  into  sobs  and  cries;  his  heart 
was  heavy  with  the  sense  of  desertion,  for 
he  wept  not  for  his  home,  his  mother,  his 
kind  friends,  Ned  and  Gad-ish — on  these 
blessings  he  had  lost  all  hold,  all  hope.  He 
mourned  for  his  late  companions,  forsooth! 
— the  big  men,  the  boat,  the  river,  the  star. 
They  had  so  cruelly  forsaken  him,  and  here 
he  was  so  poignantly  unfamiliar  and  help 
less.  When  the  wroman  held  out  a  finger 
to  him  and  smiled,  he  bowed  his  head  as  he 
wept  and  shook  it  to  and  fro  that  he  might 
not  see  her,  for  her  yellow  teeth  had  great 
gaps  among  them,  and  as  she  laughed  a 
strange  light  came  into  her  eyes,  and  he  was 
woe — woe! — for  his  comrades  of  the  row 
locks  and  the  Tennessee  River. 

It  would  have  seemed  a  strange  face  to 

135 


THE   ORDEAL 


others  as  well  as  to  the  poor  baby.  For  this 
was  indeed  an  Indian  woman.  A  late  day, 
certainly,  for  a  captive  among  the  Chero- 
kees,  but  the  moonshiners  felt  that  they  had 
scored  a  final  victory  when  they  left  the 
little  creature  within  the  Qualla  Boundary, 
the  reservation  where  still  lingers  a  rem 
nant  of  that  tribe,  the  "  Eastern  Band,"  on 
the  North  Carolina  side  of  the  .Great  Smoky 
Mountains,  a  quaint  survival  of  ancient  days 
amidst  the  twentieth  century.  The  moon 
shiners  had  represented  the  little  boy  as  the 
son  of  one  of  their  party,  recently  a  widower. 
They  stated  that  they  were  seeking  work 
among  the  laborers  employed  in  a  certain 
silver  mine  beyond  the  Qualla  Boundary, 
and  that  they  had  lost  his  kit  with  the  rest 
of  his  clothes  in  the  Oconalufty  River  hard 
by.  Leaving  some  goods,  purchased  at  a 
cross-roads  store  on  the  way,  to  supply  this 
need,  with  a  small  sum  of  money  for  his 

136 


THE   ORDEAL 


board  in  advance,  and  fixing  an  early  day 
for  their  return,  they  departed. 

Their  story  excited  no  suspicion  at  Qualla- 
town:  the  craft  of  the  Cherokees  is  an  anti 
quated  endowment,  and  has  not  kept  pace 
with  modern  progress.  Even  the  woman, 
who  arrogated  a  spirit  of  prophecy  and  had 
long  practised  the  devices  of  a  fortune-teller, 
thus  accustomed  to  scan  the  possibilities  and 
in  some  degree  versed  in  the  adjustment  of 
the  probabilities,  accorded  the  homely  veri 
similitude  of  their  worldly-wise  representa 
tions  the  meed  of  a  simple  and  respectful 
credulity.  The  mountaineers  were  ignorant 
indeed  in  their  sort,  but  far  too  sophisticated 
to  entertain  aught  but  the  most  contemptu 
ous  disbelief  in  her  pretensions  of  special 
foresight  and  mysterious  endowment.  They 
did  not  fear  her  discrimination,  and  told  their 
story,  through  an  interpreter,  with  a  glib  dis 
regard  of  any  uncanny  perspicacity  on  her 

137 


THE    ORDEAL 


part.  She  was  one  of  the  many  Indians  of 
the  reservation  who  speak  no  English.  Her 
cabin  was  far  from  Quallatown,  and  indeed 
at  a  considerable  distance  from  any  other 
dwelling.  With  her  and  her  few  associates, 
the  moonshiners  thought  the  child  would 
soon  forget  his  name,  his  language,  and  his 
terrible  experience,  and  they  promised 
themselves  that  when  all  was  buried  in 
oblivion  they  would  come  and  reclaim  him 
and  place  him  more  suitably  among  them 
selves,  and  see  to  it  that  he  should  have  some 
chance,  some  show  in  the  world  to  make  a 
man  of  himself.  All  of  this  had  served  to 
soothe  the  vague  pricks  of  conscience,  which 
from  time  to  time  had  harassed  them  as  the 
attractions  of  the  child  began  to  make  an 
impress  even  on  their  indurated  hearts,  and 
all  was  forgotten  as  soon  as  they  caught 
the  first  glimpse  of  the  red  clay  embankment 
of  the  new  railroad,  crawling  across  the  val- 

138 


THE    ORDEAL 


ley  country  far  away  in  one  of  the  adjoining 
States;  for  they  sought  employment  in  the 
construction  gangs  here,  and  the  silver  mines 
of  their  pretended  destination  held  all  its 
treasures  unmolested  for  any  pick  or  shovel 
of  their  wielding. 


139 


VII. 

THE  discovery  of  the  catastrophe  came 
late  to  the  inmates  of  the  bungalow  on  the 
crag.  The  suave  resplendent  sunset  drew 
slowly  to  a  majestic  close.  The  color  deep 
ened  and  glowed  in  the  red  west,  even  while 
the  moon  made  speed  to  climb  the  eastern 
mountains.  Long  burnished  silver  shafts 
were  all  aslant  in  the  woods,  the  dense  au 
tumnal  foliage  still  visibly  russet  and  yel 
low,  before  Mrs.  Briscoe  came  out  on  the 
veranda  where  Bayne  lounged  in  the  swing, 
although  no  longer  able  to  scan  the  pages  of 
the  magazine  in  his  hand. 

"  Don't  you  think  it  is  odd  that  Ned  is 
so  late?  "  she  asked. 

"  I  don't  know  his  habit,"  he  rejoined  care 
lessly.  "  But  it  is  almost  as  light  as  day  in 
the  road." 

"  He  is  usually  so  particular  about  detain- 

140 


THE   ORDEAL 


ing  the  servants,"  she  said  uneasily,  evi 
dently  a  bit  disconcerted.  "  Dinner  has  been 
ready  to  serve  for  nearly  an  hour." 

She  returned  indoors  after  a  little,  but 
Bayne  still  swung  languidly  to  and  fro,  all 
unprescient  of  the  impending  disclosure. 
Presently  he  glanced  through  the  window  of 
the  hall  near  at  hand,  noting  how  the  tints  of 
the  pretty  gowns  of  the  two  women  now  be 
fore  the  fire  imparted  a  rich  pictorial  ef 
fect  to  the  interior,  the  one  costume  being 
of  a  canary  tint,  with  bretelles  and  girdle  of 
brown  velvet,  while  Mrs.  Briscoe's  striking 
beauty  was  accentuated  by  the  artistic  blend 
ing  of  two  blues.  In  the  interval,  while 
his  attention  was  diverted  from  the  scene 
without,  a  change  had  supervened  there,  and 
he  experienced  a  sudden  disquieting  moni 
tion  as  he  observed  that  the  groom,  who  had 
been  hovering  in  the  road  at  some  distance, 
had  been  joined  by  another  stable-man,  and 

141 


THE    ORDEAL 


that  the  butler,  easily  distinguishable  from 
the  others  in  the  gathering  gloom  by  his 
white  shirt  front,  was  swiftly  crossing  the 
lawn  toward  them.  Bayne  sprang  from  the 
swing,  leaped  silently  from  the  veranda  into 
the  grass,  and  walked  quickly  toward  the 
group.  They  had  already  descried  his  ap 
proach,  and  eagerly  met  him  half  way — in  a 
state  verging  on  panic,  he  found  to  his  own 
fright  and  dismay. 

Something  had  happened,  they  averred. 
Mr.  Briscoe  was  never  late  like  this.  He  had 
too  much  consideration  for  his  household. 
He  would  not  risk  occasioning  Mrs.  Bris 
coe  anxiety.  He  would  not  keep  little 
Archie  out  in  the  night  air — he  was  very 
particular  about  little  Archie.  Oh,  Fairy- 
foot  was  all  right — there  was  not  a  horse  in 
Tennessee  that  Mr.  Briscoe  could  not  han 
dle.  They  had  no  fear  at  all  about  the 
mare.  But  after  Mr.  Briscoe  had  driven 

142 


THE    ORDEAL 


away,  the  groom  who  had  been  ordered  to 
investigate  the  hotel  had  found  signs  of  in 
trusion  in  the  vacant  building.  Broken  vic 
tuals  were  on  the  hearth  of  the  serving-room 
adjoining  the  great  dining-hall,  and  an  old 
slouched  hat  was  lying  in  that  apartment, 
evidently  dropped  inadvertently  near  one 
of  the  tables.  A  rude  lantern  with  a  candle 
burned  down  almost  to  the  socket  was  in 
an  upper  chamber,  usually  illuminated  by 
acetylene  gas,  as  was  all  the  building. 
Bayne  remembered,  according  the  circum 
stance  a  fresh  and  added  importance,  the 
fleeing  apparition  in  the  vacant  hotel  that 
had  frightened  Lillian,  and  Mrs.  Briscoe's 
declaration  that  a  light  had  flashed  the  pre 
vious  night  from  the  interior  of  the  deserted 
building.  But  this  intrusion  was  not  neces 
sarily  of  inimical  significance,  he  argued. 
Tramps,  perhaps,  or  some  belated  hunter 
stealing  a  shelter  from  the  blinding  fog,  or 

143 


THE    ORDEAL 


even  petty  thieves,  finding  an  unguarded  en 
trance — it  might  mean  no  more.  In  fact, 
such  intrusion  was  the  normal  incident  of 
any  vacant  house  in  remote  seclusion,  un 
protected  by  a  caretaker.  But  this  reason 
ing  did  not  convince  the  servants.  Some 
thing  had  happened,  they  reiterated;  some 
thing  terrible  had  happened! 

Bayne,  flouting  fear  as  a  folly,  yet  him 
self  feeling  the  cold  chill  of  dismay,  dared 
not  dismiss  their  anxieties  as  groundless.  He 
hastily  arranged  for  a  patrol  of  the  only 
road  by  which  Briscoe  could  return,  incon 
gruously  feeling  at  the  moment  absurd  and 
shamefaced  in  view  of  his  host's  indignation 
and  ridicule  should  he  presently  appear. 
Bayne  had  ordered  the  phaeton  with  the  in 
tention  of  himself  rousing  the  country-side 
and  organizing  a  search  when,  to  his  con 
sternation,  the  two  ladies,  who  had  observed 
the  colloguing  group,  issued  on  the  veranda, 

144 


THE    ORDEAL 


frantic  with  terror,  pale  and  agonized.  Both 
had  grasped  the  fact  of  disaster,  albeit  un- 
formulated,  yet  both  hoped  against  hope. 

'  Take  me  with  you!  "  Lillian  cried,  seiz 
ing  Bayne's  wrist  in  a  grip  like  steel.  "  Take 
me  to  my  child!  " 

He  could  not  be  rid  of  her  importunacy, 
and  he  came  to  think  it  was  well  that  the  two 
should  be  separated,  for  Mrs.  Briscoe  had  not 
abandoned  all  self-control,  and  her  gallant 
struggle  for  composure  appealed  for  his  aid. 

"  No,"  she  had  said  firmly;  "  Ned  would 
expect  me  to  wait  for  him  here.  Dead  or 
alive,  he  will  come  back  to  me  here." 

He  was  glad  to  get  Lillian  out  of  her 
sight  and  hearing.  With  every  muscle  re 
laxed,  almost  collapsed,  curiously  ghastly  in 
her  gay  gown,  she  was  lifted  bodily  into 
the  vehicle,  repeating  constantly  with  blood 
less  lips  and  a  strange,  false,  mechanical 
voice,  "  Take  me  to  my  dead  child! " 

10  145 


THE    ORDEAL 


Once  as  they  spun  swiftly  through  the 
misty  sheen  and  dewy  shadow,  the  moisture- 
laden  boughs  that  thrust  across  the  narrow 
roadway  now  and  again  filliping  them  on  the 
cheeks  with  perfumed  showers,  she  turned 
that  death-smitten  face  toward  him  and  said 
in  her  natural,  smooth  tones,  "  You  have 
your  revenge  at  last.  It  could  n't  be  a 
heavier  blow ! " 

"  I  want  you  to  be  still! "  he  cried  with 
vehement  rudeness.  "  I  can't  drive  straight 
if  you  rattle  me.  I  am  taking  you  to  your 
child." 

And  once  more  broke  forth  the  eerie 
shrilling  anew:  "  Take  me  to  my  child!  Take 
me  to  my  dead  child!  " 

At  the  first  house  that  Bayne  roused,  he 
was  encumbered  and  harassed  by  her  strange 
intolerance  that  they  should  speak  of  Bris- 
coe  at  all;  for  the  summer  sojourner  was  a 
favorite  with  his  humble  neighbors,  and  a 

146 


THE    ORDEAL 


great  tumult  of  concern  ensued  on  the  sug 
gestion  that  he  had  encountered  disaster  in 
some  sort. 

It  all  seemed  to  the  jealous  mother-heart 
to  minimize  her  own  sacred  grief.  "  But 
he  had  my  child  with  him,  my  dead  child ! " 
she  would  shrill  out.  And  the  slow  rustic's 
formulation  of  a  suggestion  or  a  plan  must 
needs  tarry  in  abeyance  as  he  gazed  awe 
struck  at  this  ghastly  apparition,  decked  in 
trim  finery,  mowing  and  wringing  her  hands, 
shown  under  the  hood  of  the  phaeton  in  the 
blended  light  of  the  moon  and  the  moun 
taineer's  lantern,  while  his  household  stood 
half-clad  in  the  doorway  and  peered  out, 
mute  and  affrighted,  as  at  a  spectre. 

The  scanty  population  of  the  district 
turned  out  to  the  last  man.  The  woods  of 
the  vicinity  were  pervaded  with  exploring 
parties,  now  and  again  hallooing  their  sig 
nals,  till  the  crags  rang  with  the  melancholy 

147 


THE    ORDEAL 


interchange  of  hail  and  hopeless  response. 
In  fact,  the  night  was  nearly  spent  before 
a  hunter,  roused  by  the  echoing  clamors, 
joined  the  search  with  the  statement  that  he 
had  been  at  a  "  deer  stand  "  in  the  valley  dur 
ing  the  afternoon,  and  had  noted  at  a  dis 
tance  some  object  crash  down  from  the  sum 
mit  of  a  certain  crag.  He  had  fancied  it  only 
a  fragment  of  the  rock  falling,  and  had  not 
the  curiosity  to  leave  his  occupation  and  go 
so  far  to  investigate  the  nature  of  a  circum 
stance  seemingly  of  so  little  significance. 

Thus  it  came  about  that  the  inquisition  of 
the  coroner's  jury  resulted  in  a  verdict  of 
death  by  accident.  It  was  supposed  that 
the  little  child's  body  was  crushed  indistin- 
guishably  in  the  mangled  mass  of  horse  and 
man,  themselves  scarcely  to  be  distintegrated 
in  the  fall  from  so  stupendous  a  height.  The 
big  white  beaver  hat  of  the  child  was  found 
floating  on  the  surface  of  a  deep  pool  hard 

148 


THE    ORDEAL 


by,  half  quagmire,  half  quicksand,  and 
would  in  itself  have  sufficed  to  dispel  any 
doubts  of  his  fate,  had  doubt  been  enter 
tained.  The  burial  was  accomplished  as  best 
might  be,  and  the  dolorous  incident  seemed 
at  an  end.  But  throughout  the  dry,  soft 
Indian  summer  the  little  boy's  jaunty  red 
coat  swung  in  the  wind,  unseen,  unheeded, 
on  the  upper  boughs  of  a  tree  in  the  valley, 
where  it  had  chanced  to  lodge  when  the 
treacherous  Copenny  had  cast  it  forth  from 
the  bluff  above  to  justify  the  hypothesis  of 
the  fall  of  the  little  fellow  from  those  awful 
heights. 

Gradually  the  catastrophe  ceased  to  be  the 
paramount  sensation  of  the  country-side. 
Bayne's  interests  of  necessity  had  drawn  him 
back  to  his  city  office.  He  had  remonstrated 
against  the  decision  of  the  two  bereaved 
women  to  remain  in  the  bungalow  for  a 
time.  He  had  advocated  change,  travel, 

149 


THE    ORDEAL 


aught  that  might  compass  a  surcease  of  the 
indulgence  of  sorrow  and  dreary  seclusion, 
that  are  so  dear  and  so  pernicious  to  the 
stricken  heart.  But  in  their  affliction  the 
two  clung  together  and  to  the  place  en 
deared  by  tender  associations  of  the  recent 
habitation  of  the  beloved  and  vanished. 
They  said  that  none  could  feel  for  them  as 
each  for  the  other,  and,  in  fact,  their  awful 
tragedy  had  cemented  an  affection  already 
almost  sisterly.  Thus  the  bungalow  caged 
through  the  opening  of  wintry  weather  these 
tenants  of  woe  who  had  come  like  the  birds 
for  sunshine  and  summer  only.  Since  the 
community  continued  in  absolute  ignorance 
that  any  crime  had  been  committed,  there 
was  no  sense  of  insecurity  or  apprehension 
of  danger,  other  than  might  menace  any 
country  house,  isolated  and  secluded  in  situ 
ation.  The  normal  precautions  were  taken, 
the  household  was  strengthened,  and  Mrs. 

150 


THE    ORDEAL 


Marable,  Lillian's  aunt,  or  rather  her  un 
cle's  wife,  who  had  come  to  her  at  the  first 
news  of  her  affliction,  had  consented  to  re 
main  during  her  stay.  Owing  to  the  dis 
covery  of  the  intrusion  into  the  hotel,  with 
no  other  fear  than  material  injury  to  the 
property  by  frisky  boys  of  the  vicinity,  the 
management  had  installed  there  a  caretaker 
with  his  family,  who  was  also,  as  weather 
favored,  to  superintend  some  repairs  to  the 
building.  It  had  been  arranged  by  Bayne, 
previous  to  his  departure,  that  the  eldest 
son,  a  stalwart  youth  of  twenty,  should 
sleep  in  a  room  at  the  bungalow,  having  his 
rifle  loaded  and  pistols  at  hand,  provided 
against  any  menace  of  disturbance.  Thus 
the  winter  closed  in  upon  a  seclusion  and 
solitude  of  funereal  intimations. 

The  winds  were  loosed  and  rioted  through 
the  lonely  recesses  of  the  craggy  ravines  and 
the  valley  with  a  wild  and  eerie  blare;  the 

151 


THE    ORDEAL 


leaves,  rustling  shrilly,  all  sere  now,  so  long 
the  weather  had  held  dry,  fled  in  myriads 
before  the  gusts.  Soon  they  lay  on  the 
ground  in  dense  masses,  and  in  the  denuda 
tion  of  the  trees  the  brilliant  tints  of  the  lit 
tle  coat,  swinging  so  high  in  the  blast,  caught 
the  eye  of  a  wandering  hunter.  At  first 
sight,  he  thought  it  but  a  flare  of  the  au 
tumnal  foliage,  and  gave  it  no  heed,  but 
some  days  afterward  its  persistence  struck 
his  attention.  It  seemed  a  tragic  and  pit 
eous  thing  when  he  discovered  its  nature. 
He  cut  the  tree  down,  too  high  it  was  lodged 
for  other  means  to  secure  it,  and  after  the 
county  officials  had  examined  it,  he  brought 
it  to  the  mother. 

Over  it  Lillian  shed  such  tears  as  have  be 
dewed  the  relics  of  the  dead  since  first  this 
sad  old  world  knew  loss,  since  first  a  grave 
was  filled.  How  unavailing!  How  lacerat 
ing!  How  consoling!  She  began  to  feel 

152 


THE  ORDEAL 


a  plaintive  sympathy  for  all  the  bereaved  of 
earth,  and  her  heart  and  mind  grew  more 
submissive  as  she  remembered  that  only  for 
this  cause  Jesus  wept,  albeit  a  "  man  of  sor 
rows  and  acquainted  with  grief." 

The  little  coat,  so  gayly  decorated,  re 
minded  her  of  another  coat  of  many  colors, 
its  splendor  testimony  of  the  gentlest  do 
mestic  affection,  brought  stained  with  blood 
to  another  parent  long  ago,  to  interpret  the 
cruel  mystery  of  a  son's  death.  And  after 
all  these  centuries  she  felt  drawn  near  to 
Jacob  in  the  tender  realization  of  a  common 
humanity,  and  often  repeated  his  despairing 
words,  "  I  shall  go  down  into  the  grave  unto 
my  son  mourning." 

Then  her  heart  was  pierced  with  self-pity 
for  the  contrast  of  his  gratuitous  affliction 
with  her  hopeless  grief.  So  happy  in  truth 
was  he,  despite  his  thought  of  woe,  that  he 
should  have  lamented  as  dead  his  son,  who 

153 


THE  ORDEAL 


was  so  full  of  life  the  while,  whose  future 
on  earth  was  destined  to  be  so  long  and  so 
beneficent.  She  spoke  of  this  so  often  and 
so  wistfully  that  it  seemed  to  Gladys  to  pre 
cipitate  an  illusion,  which  afterward  ab 
sorbed  her  mind  to  the  exclusion  of  all  else. 


154 


VIII. 

ONE  sinister  day  when  the  slate-hued 
clouds  hung  low,  and  the  valley  was  dark 
and  drear  with  its  dense  leafless  forests, 
when  the  mountains  gloomed  a  sombre  pur 
ple  and  no  sound  but  the  raucous  cawing  of 
crows  broke  upon  the  sullen  air,  Lillian's 
paroxysms  of  grief  seemed  to  reach  a  cli 
max.  Their  intensity  alarmed  her  two  com 
panions,  and  the  forced  composure  and  lat 
ent  strength  of  character  of  Gladys  were 
tried  to  the  utmost  to  sustain  her  own  equi 
librium.  But  as  the  afternoon  wore  away 
Lillian  grew  calmer,  though  her  mind  never 
deviated  from  the  subject.  The  trio  had 
ceased  to  sit  in  the  large  reception  hall,  for 
its  gun-rack  and  rods  and  reels,  its  fur 
rugs,  its  trophies  of  sport,  its  mandolin  and 
flute  and  piano,  were  now  pathetically  remi 
niscent  of  the  vanished  presence  of  its  joy- 

155 


THE  ORDEAL 


ous  and  genial  owner.  They  used  instead 
the  small  library  which  opened  from  it, 
where  a  spacious  bay-window  gave  ample 
light  in  the  dreary  days,  and  the  big  wood 
fire  sent  its  flash  and  fragrance  to  the  re 
motest  corner.  It  filled  with  a  rich  glow  the 
fabric  of  the  little  red  coat  as  the  mother 
held  the  sleeve  to  her  lips  and  then  turned 
it  to  readjust  the  cuff  creased  in  folding. 
"  He  used  to  look  so  pretty  in  it.  My 
beauty!  My  baby!  My  own!"  she  cried 
out  in  a  voice  muffled,  half-smothered,  by 
her  choking  throat.  "  And  he  thought  it 
so  fine!  He  valued  it  beyond  all  his  other 
possessions,"  she  continued  presently  with  a 
melancholy  smile,  even  while  the  tears,  so 
bitter  that  they  stung  her  cheeks,  coursed 
down  her  face;  for  she  had  begun  to  find  a 
languid,  sad  pleasure  now  and  then  in  dis 
cursive  reminiscence,  and  Gladys,  who  knew 
the  little  fellow  so  well,  could  respond  with 

156 


THE  ORDEAL 


discretion  and  stimulate  this  resource  for  the 
promotion  of  calm  and  resignation.  '  You 
remember,  Gladys,  don't  you,  how  he  de 
lighted  in  these  pockets  ?  You  were  with  me 
when  he  first  got  the  coat.  He  doubted  if 
he  were  really  going  to  have  pockets,  be 
cause  there  were  none  in  his  little  white 
reefer.  Do  you  remember  how  he  looked 
when  I  lifted  the  flap — isn't  the  embroidery 
lovely? — and  put  his  dear  little  hand  into 
his  first  pocket?  How  surprised  he  was 
when  I  showed  him  this  pocket  between  the 
facing  and  the  lining !  I  wanted  him  to  have 
enough  pockets — he  admired  them  so!  He 
had  never  dreamed  of  finding  one  here.  I 
told  him  it  was  his  inside  pocket — he  called 
it  his  '  shy  pocket.'  " 

"  A  good  name  for  it,  too,"  commented 
Gladys.  "  Nobody  would  ever  think  to  find 
a  pocket  there." 

Lillian  had  suddenly  ceased  to  speak.  She 

157 


THE  ORDEAL 


had  suited  the  action  to  the  word  and  slipped 
her  own  fingers  into  the  pocket.  There  was 
something  within.  She  drew  it  forth, 
startled,  her  pale  face  all  contorted  and 
ghastly.  It  was  a  bit  of  stone,  of  white 
stone,  fashioned  by  curious  nature  in  the 
similitude  of  a  lily,  wrought  in  the  darkness, 
the  silence  of  the  depths  of  the  earth. 
Lillian  had  previously  seen  such  things ;  she 
recognized  the  efflorescence  of  a  limestone 
cavern.  She  sprang  up  suddenly  with  a 
scream  that  rang  through  the  room  with  the 
force  and  volume  of  a  clarion  tone. 

'  This  child  has  been  in  a  cave ! "  she 
shrilled,  remembering  the  raid  on  the  moon 
shiners'  cavern.  "  He  is  not  dead.  He  is 
stolen,  stolen! " 

The  logic  of  the  possibilities,  cemented  by 
her  renewal  of  frantic  hope,  had  constructed 
a  stanch  theory.  She  was  reasoning  on  its 
every  phase.  The  coercion  of  this  signifi- 

158 


THE  ORDEAL 


cant  discovery  had  suggested  the  truth. 
"  This  coat  was  left  as  a  blind,  a  bluff,  to 
cover  the  tracks  of  a  crime.  Gladys,  Gladys, 
think — think!  " 

But  poor  Gladys,  in  her  deep  mourning 
gown,  all  her  splendid  beauty  beclouded  by 
grief,  sadly  shook  her  head,  unconvinced. 
The  child  had  possibly  found  the  stone,  she 
argued. 

"  Would  he  not  have  shared  his  joy  with 
every  creature  in  the  household?  "  demanded 
Lillian.  "  Did  he  ever  have  a  thought  that 
I  did  not  know?  " 

"  It  might  have  been  given  to  him," 
Gladys  sadly  persisted. 

"  Remember  his  disposition,  Gladys,  his 
grateful  little  heart.  He  would  have  worn 
us  all  out,  showing  the  gift  and  celebrating 
the  generosity  of  the  giver.  How  flattered 
he  was,  always,  to  be  considered!  He  never 
seemed  in  the  least  to  care  for  the  value  of 

159 


THE    ORDEAL 


the  thing.  He  would  cherish  an  empty  spool 
from  a  friend's  hand.  It  was  wonderful  how 
he  loved  to  be  loved.  I  feel  sure,  I  know, 
that  coat  was  taken  from  him;  and  he  is 
alive,  stolen" 

And  from  this  conviction  she  would  not 
depart.  It  was  a  folly,  a  frenzy,  her  two 
friends  contended.  Its  indulgence  would 
threaten  her  sanity.  They  besought  her  to 
consider  anew.  The  discovery  of  such  a 
stone  in  this  mountain  region  was  altogether 
devoid  of  significance.  Right  reason  and 
religion  alike  dictated  submission  to  the  de 
crees  of  Providence. 

These  arguments  were  all  thrown  away. 
Neither  could  urge  aught  to  restrain  her. 
With  a  swift  strength  of  gait  that  seemed 
amazing  to  those  who  had  witnessed  her 
feeble  dragging  about  the  house  for  weeks 
past,  Lillian  flashed  through  the  door,  and 
suddenly  there  was  the  keen  tinkle  of  a  bell 

160 


THE    ORDEAL 


in  the  darkening,  chill  spaces  of  the  unused 
hall.  The  other  two,  startled,  appalled,  as 
in  the  contemplation  of  the  aberrations  of 
acute  mania,  scarcely  knowing  whether  to 
follow  or  to  call  for  help,  remained  motion 
less,  gazing  at  each  other  in  pallid  agitation, 
awaiting  developments,  of  which  they  could 
divine  naught. 

Lillian,  however,  was  perfectly  calm  as 
she  called  up  "  Long  Distance  "  and  gave 
the  address  of  Julian  Bayne  in  the  city  of 
Glaston — the  number  of  his  office  and  his 
residence  as  well. 

The  two  women  in  the  firelight  glanced 
at  each  other  in  mute  significance.  Then 
Lillian  urged  the  operator  at  Shaftesville 
to  the  utmost  diligence.  "  Find  him  wher 
ever  he  is.  Send  special  messenger.  Get 
him  to  the  'phone  at  once.  Emergency  call ! 
Make  them  understand  that  at  the  Glaston 
exchange." 

11  161 


THE    ORDEAL 


Mrs.  Marable,  a  little,  precise,  wrinkled 
old  lady,  with  a  brown  taffeta  gown  and  a 
Marie  Stuart  lace  cap,  cherished  the  tradi 
tions  of  the  old  school  of  propriety,  and  the 
controlling  influence  proved  strong  even 
amidst  this  chaos  of  excitements.  As  Mrs. 
Royston  returned  in  a  state  of  absolute  ex 
altation  to  the  fireside,  "  Lillian,"  said  Mrs. 
Marable  coldly,  "  the  officers  of  the  law  are 
the  proper  parties  for  you  to  appeal  to,  if 
you  are  going  to  pursue  this  obsession.  Why 
should  you  call  up  that — man?  Why  don't 
you  call  the  sheriff  of  the  county?  " 

"  Because  I  want  Julian  Bayne.  I  be 
lieve  in  him!  I  can  trust  him!  It  is  almost 
like  the  hand  of  omnipotence — there  is  help 
in  the  very  thought  of  him." 

There  were  no  more  tears.  She  sat  strong, 
elate,  her  head  held  high,  her  hands  folded 
calmly  on  the  crape  pleats  of  the  black 
gown  she  wore  for  the  child's  sake,  ready 

162 


THE    ORDEAL 


to  wait  the  evening  through.  But  there  was 
a  prompt  response.  When  the  telephone- 
bell  jarred  out  suddenly  in  the  dim  stillness 
of  the  hall,  Gladys  sprang  up  with  a  sharp 
cry,  her  hands  to  her  ears,  as  if  to  shut  out 
the  sound.  But  Lillian  ran  lightly  out  of 
the  room,  and  the  two  heard  in  wonder  the 
sure  vibrations  of  her  clear  composed  ac 
cents.  "  Yes,  Long  Distance,  this  is  Mrs. 
Royston."  Then  suddenly  her  tones  were 
pervaded  with  embarrassment:  "Oh,  Mr. 
John  Bayne.  .  .  .  Oh,  the  father  of  Mr. 
Julian  Bayne.  .  .  .  No,  no,  no  com 
mands.  .  .  .  Thank  you  very  much.  Only 
the  present  address  of  Mr.  Julian  Bayne." 
Once  more  the  two  in  the  library  ex 
changed  a  glance  expressive  of  more  than 
either  would  have  been  willing  to  put  into 
words.  For  there  was  a  very  definite  inter 
val  of  delay  at  the  telephone,  and  it  would 
need  no  sorcerer  to  divine  that  the  father 

163 


THE    ORDEAL 


might  deem  that  this  lady,  who  had  so  sig 
nally  befooled  his  son  heretofore,  had  no 
beneficent  concern  to  serve  with  his  address. 
But  the  old  gentleman  was  evidently  the 
pink  of  punctilio.  Moreover,  Julian  Bayne 
had  already  proved  himself  man  enough  to 
be  safely  chargeable  with  his  own  affairs. 

"At  Crystal?  .  .  .  Thirty  miles  from 
Shaftesville?  .  .  .  Telephone  exchange 
there?  ...  So  much  obliged! 
Good-by!" 

The  bitter  disappointment!  The  tortur 
ing  delay!  Gladys  dreaded  to  witness  their 
effects  on  Lillian,  baffled  at  the  outset  in 
this  miserable  delusion  that  her  child  still 
lived,  because  of  a  bit  of  stone  in  the  pocket 
of  a  coat  he  had  worn.  It  would  debilitate 
her  as  completely  as  if  her  belief  were 
founded  on  cogent  reason.  But  Lillian, 
with  a  singularly  fresh  aspect,  with  a  buoy 
ant  energy,  swept  into  the  room  after  call- 

164 


THE    ORDEAL 


ing  up  Crystal,  cool,  collected,  as  competent 
of  dealing  with  delay  and  suspense  as  fac 
tors  in  her  plan  as  if  it  were  some  common 
place  matter  of  business,  and  naturally  de 
pendent  on  the  contingencies  which  environ 
the  domain  of  affairs.  The  lamps  came  in 
and  filled  the  room  with  a  golden  glow,  as 
she  sat  in  a  majestic  assurance  that  gave 
her  an  aspect  of  a  sort  of  regal  state.  Her 
hair,  ill-arranged,  disordered  in  lying  down 
throughout  the  day  in  her  reclining  chair, 
showed  in  its  redundance  the  splendor  of  its 
tint  and  quality;  her  face,  lately  so  wan  and 
lean  and  ghastly,  was  roseate,  and  the  lines 
had  strangely  filled  out  in  soft  curves  to 
their  wonted  contour;  her  hands  lay  supple 
and  white  and  quiet  in  her  lap,  with  not  a 
tense  ligament,  not  a  throbbing  fibre — deli 
cate,  beautiful  hands — it  seemed  odd  to  her 
companions  to  think  how  they  had  seen  her 
wring  them  in  woe  and  clench  them  in  de- 

165 


THE    ORDEAL 


spair.  Her  black  gown  with  its  heavy  folds 
of  crape  had  an  element  of  incongruity  with 
that  still,  assured,  resolved  presence,  ex 
pressing  so  cheerful  a  poise,  so  confident  a 
control  of  circumstance.  She  did  not  ex 
pend  herself  in  protest  when  at  ten  o'clock 
they  besought  her  to  go  to  bed,  to  be  called 
should  the  telephone-bell  ring.  Her  nega 
tion  was  so  definite  that  they  forbore  futile 
importunacy.  She  did  not  even  waste  her 
strength  in  urgency  when  they  declared  that 
they  would  keep  the  vigil  with  her.  She 
merely  essayed  a  remonstrance,  and,  since  it 
was  obviously  vain,  she  desisted.  She  would 
not  discuss  the  theme.  She  had  no  words. 
It  even  seemed  that  she  had  no  thoughts,  no 
fears,  no  plans.  She  was  annulled  in  wait 
ing — waiting  for  the  moment,  the  opportu 
nity  to  take  action.  While  the  time  went 
by,  she  sat  there  as  under  a  spell  of  sus 
pended  animation,  fresh,  clear,  capable,  tire- 

166 


THE    ORDEAL 


less,  silent.  The  housemaid  came  in  once 
and  mended  the  fire,  but  later  Gladys,  mind 
ful  of  the  curiosity  of  servants,  forbore  to 
ring  the  bell  and  threw  on  the  logs  herself; 
then  sat  down  to  gaze  again  into  the  depths 
of  the  coals,  flickering  to  a  white  heat  at  the 
end  of  the  glowing  red  perspective,  and 
wonder  what  was  to  come  to  them  all — in 
deed,  what  was  this  strange  thing  that  had 
already  befallen  them  in  the  obsession  of  this 
silent  woman,  who  sat  so  still,  so  suddenly 
endued  with  vigor,  so  brilliant  with  health 
and  freshness,  out  of  a  state  of  mental  an 
guish  bordering  on  nervous  prostration? 
Was  it  all  fictitious? — and  was  there  some 
thing  terrible  to  ensue  when  it  should  col 
lapse?  And  what  action  was  incumbent  on 
her  hostess,  left  to  face  this  problem  in  this 
lonely  country  house  in  the  dead  hours  of 
night? 


167 


IX. 

THE  wind  had  risen ;  the  swaying  of  the 
great  trees  outside  was  partially  visible  as 
well  as  drearily  audible  to  the  group,  for 
Gladys  had  postponed  ordering  the  shutters 
closed,  and  then  had  forgotten  them.  The 
gigantic  dim  shapes  of  the  oaks  surged  to 
and  fro  in  an  undiscriminated  shadowy  tur 
moil.  It  was  a  dark  night,  and  cloudy.  Vast 
masses  of  vapor  were  on  the  march,  under 
the  coercion  of  the  blast  that  followed  fast 
and  scourged  and  flouted  the  laggards. 
Mrs.  Marable  noted  now  and  again  a  light 
and  tentative  touch  on  the  panes,  and  began 
to  wonder  how  far  the  illumined  window 
could  be  seen  down  the  road.  Was  it  not 
calculated  to  allure  marauders  and  night- 
hawks  to  this  lonely  house?  She  was  moved 
to  hope  that  the  stalwart  son  of  the  hotel 

168 


THE    ORDEAU 


caretaker,  who  occupied  a  room  at  the  bun 
galow  for  the  greater  security  of  its  occu 
pants,  was  not  a  heavy  sleeper ;  though  from 
the  stolid,  phlegmatic  appearance  of  the 
young  man,  of  a  sluggish  temperament,  she 
drearily  thought  it  possible  that  he  could  be 
roused  by  no  less  means  than  applying  a 
torch  to  his  bed  furniture  to  bring  him  out 
in  a  light  blaze.  She  experienced  a  great 
revulsion  of  relief  when  she  began  to  recog 
nize  the  mysterious  sound  that  had  attracted 
her  attention.  It  was  sleet — no  longer  slyly 
touching  the  glass  here  and  there,  but  dash 
ing  with  all  the  force  of  the  wind  in  tinkling 
showers  against  it.  The  sound  had  its  chilly 
influence  even  before  the  warm  fire. 

Suddenly  the  shock  of  the  bell,  jangling 
out  its  summons  in  the  dark  cold  hall !  Again 
Lillian's  composed,  swift  exit  in  response. 
Crystal  had  answered,  and  here  was  Mr.  Ju 
lian  Bayne  at  the  hotel  and  on  the  wire. 

169 


THE    ORDEAL 


Could  he  come  to  her  at  once,  at  her  utmost 
need,  and  by  the  first  train?  Oh!  (at  last 
a  poignant  cadence  of  pain)  there  was  no 
train?  Crystal  was  not  on  a  railroad  at  all? 
(A  pause  of  silent,  listening  expectancy, 
then  the  keen  vibration  of  renewed  hope.) 
Oh,  could  he?  Could  he  really  drive  across 
country?  But  wasn't  it  too  far?  Oh,  a  fast 
horse?  Fifty  miles?  But  weren't  the  roads 
dreadful  ? 

"  Oh— oh,  Gladys,  he  has  rung  off!  He 
was  in  such  a  hurry  I  could  hardly  under 
stand  him.  I  could  hear  him  calling  out  his 
orders  in  the  hotel  office  to  have  his  horse 
harnessed,  while  he  was  talking  to  me." 

The  effort  was  triumphantly  made,  and 
Julian  Bayne  was  coming,  but  as  she  re 
turned  from  the  chill  hall  to  the  illumined, 
warm  room  the  tinkle  of  ice  on  the  window- 
pane  caught  her  attention  for  the  first  time. 

"  Snow?  "  she  said,  appalled;  then,  listen- 
no 


THE    ORDEAL 


ing  a  moment:  "  And  there  is  sleet!  I  won 
der  if  it  is  more  than  a  flurry." 

She  ran  to  the  window,  but,  already 
frozen,  the  sash  refused  to  rise.  She  pressed 
her  cheek  to  the  pane  and  beheld  aghast  a 
ghostly  and  sheeted  world,  so  fast  had  the 
snowflakes  fallen,  and  still  the  sleet  sent 
its  crystal  fusillade  against  the  glass. 

"Oh!"  she  exclaimed,  "Julian  Bayne 
can  never  come  safely  through  this  ice  storm 
and  up  the  mountain.  Listen — listen!  It 
is  hailing  now !  Oh,  he  will  break  his  neck ! 
Remember  what  a  wild  and  savage  thing  it 
is  that  Julian  Bayne  calls  a  fast  horse!  He 
will  lose  his  way  in  the  woods  and  freeze 
to  death;  and  after  all,  it  is  perhaps  for 
nothing.  I  can  wait — I  can  wait — time  is 
not  so  essential.  Oh,  I  will  postpone  his 
coming!  I  will  call  him  up  again!  Run, 
Gladys,  ring  the  bell!  Call  up  Long  Dis 
tance!  I  can't  get  there  quickly  enough." 

171 


THE    ORDEAL 


And  indeed  it  seemed  some  feeble  old 
woman  hirpling  through  the  shadows,  rather 
than  the  vigorous  commanding  presence  of 
a  few  minutes  ago.  Gladys  felt  that  the 
reaction  was  ominous  as  Lillian  held  the  re 
ceiver  with  a  hand  that  shook  as  with  palsy. 
All  had  feared  the  usual  delay,  but  while 
they  were  still  in  the  hall  the  bell  jangled, 
and  the  night-clerk  of  the  hotel  in  Crystal 
responded — little  to  a  cheering  effect  to  the 
listener,  though  of  this  he  was  unaware.  Mr. 
Bayne  had  already  set  out,  he  stated  glibly. 
He  must  be  five  miles  away  by  this  time 
(the  clerk  evidently  thought  that  he  pleased 
his  interlocutor  by  his  report  of  the  precipi 
tation  with  which  Mr.  Bayne  had  obeyed  her 
summons).  Mr.  Bayne  was  a  good  judge 
of  horse-flesh,  and  the  clerk  would  venture 
to  say  that  he  had  never  handled  the  rib 
bons  over  a  higher-couraged  animal  than  the 
one  he  had  between  the  shafts  to-night. 

172 


THE    ORDEAL 


Pretty  well  matched,  horse  and  driver — ha! 
ha!  ha!  If  anything  could  get  through  the 
ice-storm  to-night,  it  was  those  two!  Oh, 
yes,  it  had  been  snowing  hard  at  Crystal  for 
two  hours  past. 

So  he  rang  off  jauntily,  fancying  that 
Julian  Bayne's  presence  was  much  desired 
at  some  house-party  or  romantic  elopement, 
or  other  lightsome  diversion  in  the  upper 
country. 

"How  could  I?  How  could  I,  Gladys?" 
Lillian  said  again  and  again,  white,  wild- 
eyed,  and  haggard,  so  limp  and  nerveless 
that  she  could  not  have  reached  the  library 
had  not  the  other  ladies  supported  her  be 
tween  them,  half  carrying  her  to  her  reclin 
ing  chair.  '  You  both  think  I  was  wrong, 
don't  you?"  She  looked  up  at  them  with 
agonized  eyes,  pleading  for  reassurance. 

"  Well,  dear,  time  is  not  an  element  of 
importance  just  now,  it  would  seem,  to  be 

173 


THE    ORDEAL 


considered  against  other  disadvantages — 
so  many  weeks  having  already  passed. 
A  day  or  two  more  would  not  have  mat 
tered,"  returned  Mrs.  Marable,  fatally 
candid. 

Once  again  the  blast  drove  against  the 
windows  with  elemental  frenzy,  shaking  the 
sashes,  that  being  hung  loosely,  rattled  in 
their  casings.  No  more  the  dark,  glossy 
spaces  between  the  long  red  curtains  re 
flected  fragmentary  bits  of  the  bright,  warm 
room  within,  or  gave  dull  glimpses  of  the 
bosky  grove  and  the  clouded  sky  without. 
The  glass  was  now  blankly  white,  opaque, 
sheeted  with  ice,  and  only  the  wind  gave 
token  how  the  storm  raged.  It  was  indeed 
a  wild  night  for  a  drive  of  fifty  miles  through 
a  mountain  wilderness,  over  roads  sodden 
with  the  late  rains,  the  deep  mire  corru 
gated  into  ruts  by  the  wheels  of  travel  and 
now  frozen  stiff. 

174 


THE  ORDEAL 


But  the  roads  might  well  be  hopelessly 
lost  under  drifts  of  snow,  and  the  woods 
were  as  uncharted  as  a  trackless  ocean. 
Many  water-courses  were  out  of  the  banks 
with  the  recent  floods.  Gladys  remembered 
that  the  county  paper  had  chronicled  the 
sweeping  away  of  several  bridges;  others 
were  left  doubtless  undermined,  insecure, 
trembling  to  their  fall.  Julian  would  be 
often  constrained  to  trust  his  life  to  his 
plucky  horse,  swimming  when  out  of  his 
depth,  and  dragging  after  him,  as  best  he 
might,  the  vehicle,  heavy  with  its  iron  fix 
tures,  and  reeking  with  the  water  and  the 
tenacious  red  clay  mire.  And  then,  too,  the 
mountain  streams  were  beset  with  quick 
sands — indeed,  every  detail  of  the  night 
journey  was  environed  with  danger.  He 
could  scarcely  be  expected  to  win  through 
safely,  and  Gladys  felt  a  rush  of  indigna 
tion  that  he  should  have  attempted  the  feat. 
Must  a  man  be  as  wax  in  a  woman's  hands — 

175 


THE    ORDEAL 


especially  a  woman  whom  he  knew  unre 
liable  of  old,  who  had  failed  him  when  his 
whole  heart  was  bound  up  in  her?  At  her 
utmost  need,  she  had  said,  to  be  sure,  but 
he  had  not  canvassed  the  urgency  of  the 
necessity,  he  had  not  even  asked  a  question! 
He  had  simply  rushed  forth  into  the  bliz 
zard.  But  even  while  she  contemned  his 
foolhardiness,  she  was  woe  for  Lillian! — to 
entertain  a  hope,  even  though  the  folly  of 
illusion,  as  an  oasis  in  her  deep  distress,  a 
sentiment  so  revivifying,  so  potent,  that  it 
seemed  to  raise  her  as  it  were  from  the 
dead;  and  yet  within  the  hour  to  be  bat 
tered  down  by  self-reproach,  an  anguish  of 
anxiety,  of  torture,  of  suspense,  for  the  fate 
of  the  man  she  had  so  arbitrarily  called  to 
her  aid,  to  make  the  hope  effective  in  the  res 
cue  of  her  child.  Poor  little  Archie !  It  was 
difficult  indeed  to  think  of  him  as  dead! 
Gladys  felt  that  she  must  find  some  way  to 
sustain  Lillian. 

176 


THE  ORDEAL 


'  Why,  what  are  we  thinking  of  ? "  she 
exclaimed.  "  Julian  Bayne  will  be  half 
frozen  when  he  gets  here.  His  room  must 
be  prepared — something  hot  to  drink,  and 
something  to  eat.  No,  Lillian,  you  must  n't 
ring  the  bell!  The  servants  have  been  at 
work  all  day,  and  have  earned  their  rest. 
We  will  just  take  this  matter  in  charge 
ourselves.  You  go  to  the  kitchen  and  see 
if  the  fire  has  kept  in  the  range.  If  not, 
make  it  up.  You  will  find  wood  at  hand, 
laid  ready  for  getting  breakfast.  Mrs. 
Marable,  look  in  the  refrigerator,  please,  and 
see  what  there  is  for  him  to  eat.  I  will  get 
out  the  bed  linen  and  blankets,  for  he  will 
be  exhausted,  no  doubt." 

But  when  she  stood  alone  in  the  upper 
hall,  at  the  door  of  the  vacant  guest-room, 
the  candle  in  her  hand,  Gladys  had  a  sud 
den  keen  intimation  that  she  was  herself  but 
human,  endowed  with  muscles  susceptible  of 
overstrain,  with  nerves  of  sensitive  fibre, 

12  177 


THE    ORDEAL 


with  instincts  importunate  with  the  cry  of 
self-interest,  with  impulses  toward  collapse, 
tears,  terrors,  anxieties — all  in  revolt  against 
the  sedulous  constraint  of  will.  The  light 
of  the  candle  in  her  hand,  thrown  upward 
on  her  face,  showed  the  fictitious  anima 
tion  that  she  had  sustained  vanish  out  of 
its  lineaments,  as  life  itself  might  flicker  to 
extinction,  and  leave  a  mask  like  death.  It 
was  a  tragic  mask.  Her  lids  fell  over  her 
hopeless  eyes;  her  lips  drooped;  the  flush 
of  her  splendid  florid  beauty  had  faded  as  if 
it  had  never  bloomed.  She  discovered  that 
she  was  gasping  in  the  dull,  chill  air.  She 
leaned  against  the  balustrade  of  the  stairs, 
limp,  inert,  as  if  every  impetus  of  vigor  had 
deserted  her.  But  it  would  never  do  for 
her  to  faint,  she  reflected.  She  must  act 
for  others,  with  just  judgment,  with  fore 
sight,  with  effective  housewifely  care,  and 
with  good  heart  and  courage. 

178 


THE    ORDEAL 


"  I  must  think  for  the  rest — as  Ned  would, 
if  he  were  here,"  she  said,  still  half  faint 
ing.  She  got  the  window  open  hard  by, 
and  a  vagrant  gust  of  the  cold  air  stung 
her  face  as  with  a  lash.  But  she  was  out  of 
the  direct  course  of  the  blast  as  it  came 
shrilly  fluttering  from  over  the  roof,  and 
she  could  maintain  her  position,  although 
she  could  scarcely  breathe  in  the  keen  fri 
gidity.  Snow  had  fallen,  deeper  than  she 
had  ever  seen.  With  it  had  come  that 
strange  quality  of  visibility  that  seems  to  ap 
pertain  to  a  sheeted  world  like  an  inherent 
luminosity;  or  was  it  perchance  some  vague 
diffusion  of  light  from  the  clouded  moon, 
skulking  affrighted  somewhere  in  the  grim 
and  sullen  purlieus  of  the  sky?  She  lis 
tened,  thinking  to  hear  the  stir  of  horses  in 
their  stalls,  some  sound  from  barn  or  byre, 
the  wakening  of  the  restless  poultry,  all 
snugly  housed ;  but  the  somnolent  stillness  of 

179 


THE    ORDEAL 


the  muffled  earth  continued  unbroken,  and 
only  the  frantic  wind  screamed  and  howled 
and  wailed. 

One  sombre  hour  succeeded  another  as  if 
the  succession  were  endless.  Long,  long  be 
fore  there  was  the  sense  of  a  boreal  dawn 
in  the  chill  darkness,  the  house  stood  in 
readiness,  though  none  came.  The  servants 
were  presently  astir;  the  fires  were  freshly 
flaring,  the  furniture  rearranged.  In  view 
of  the  freeze,  the  gardener  had  seen  fit  to 
cut  all  the  blooms  in  the  pit  to  save  them 
from  blight,  and  a  great  silver  bowl  on  the 
table  in  the  hall,  and  the  vases  in  the  library, 
were  filled  with  exotics.  The  fragrance  op 
pressed  Lillian  in  some  subtle  sort ;  the  spirit 
of  the  scene  was  so  alien  to  the  idea  of  festi 
val  or  function;  the  dim  gaunt  morning  was 
of  so  funereal  an  aspect;  the  gathering  of 
household  companions,  gloomy,  silent,  ex 
pectant,  into  one  room  duly  set  in  order,  was 

180 


THE    ORDEAL 


so  suggestive,  that  the  array  of  flowers  and 
the  heavy  perfumed  air  gave  the  final  signifi 
cant  impression  of  douleur  and  doom. 

At  the  first  glimpse  of  dawn,  Gladys  had 
despatched  a  groom,  well  mounted  and  with 
a  fresh  led  horse,  out  on  the  road  to  descry 
perchance  some  approach  of  Mr.  Bayne,  to 
afford  assistance  if  this  were  needed.  Hours 
went  by,  and  still  there  was  no  news,  no  re 
turn  of  the  messenger.  Now  and  again  Mrs. 
Briscoe  sought  to  exchange  a  word  with 
Mrs.  Marable  to  relieve  the  tension  of  the 
situation ;  but  the  elder  lady  was  flabby  with 
fatigue;  her  altruistic  capabilities  had  been 
tried  to  the  utmost  in  this  long  vigil  and 
painful  excitement,  which  were  indeed  un 
meet  for  her  age  and  failing  strength.  She 
did  not  enter  into  the  troubled  prevision  of 
Gladys,  who  had  been  furtively  watching  a 
strange  absorption  that  was  growing  in  Lil 
lian's  manner,  a  fevered  light  in  her  eyes. 

181 


THE    ORDEAL 


Suddenly,  as  if  in  response  to  a  summons, 
Lillian  rose,  and,  standing  tall  and  erect  in 
her  long  black  dress,  she  spoke  in  a  voice 
that  seemed  not  her  own,  so  assured,  so 
strong,  monotonous  yet  distinct. 

'  You  cruel  woman,"  she  said,  as  if  im 
personally.  But  Gladys  perceived  in  a  mo 
ment  that  she  had  in  mind  her  own  arraign 
ment,  as  if  another  were  taxing  her  with  a 
misdeed.  "  In  this  bitter  black  night,  in  this 
furious  ice-storm,  and  you  did  not  forbid  it! 
You  did  not  explain  your  need.  You  sum 
moned  him  to  risk  his  life,  his  life,  that  he 
might  something  the  earlier  offer  his  fallible 
opinion,  perhaps  worth  no  more  than  that 
bit  of  stone!  You  would  not  wait  till  day 
light — you  would  not  wait  one  hour.  You 
cruel  woman!  Already  you  had  the  best 
of  him,  his  heart,  to  throw  away  at  a  word 
as  if  it  were  naught — merely  a  plaything,  a 
tawdry  gaud — the  best  and  tenderest  and 

182 


THE    ORDEAL 


noblest  heart  that  ever  beat ! — and  for  a  silly 
quarrel,  and  for  your  peevish  vanity,  you 
consented  to  humiliate  his  honest  pride  and 
to  hold  him  up  to  ridicule,  jilted  on  his 
wedding-day.  And  but  that  he  is  so  brave 
and  genuine  and  fine  of  fibre,  he  would 
never  have  had  the  courage  to  hold  up  his 
head  again.  But  even  the  basest  of  the 
yokels  and  groundlings  could  not  make 
merry  over  the  cozening  of  so  noble  a  gen 
tleman!  And  now,  because  of  your  faith 
in  his  magnanimity,  you  summon  him  forth 
in  an  ice-storm  at  your  '  utmost  need,'  all 
careless  of  his  suffering,  at  the  risk  of  his 
life.  And  he,  fool  that  he  is,  without  even 
a  question,  regardless  of  all  that  has  come 
and  gone — or,  more  foolish  still,  forgiving 
and  forgetting — obeys  your  behest!  You 
have  taken  all  he  had  left,  you  cruel  woman ! 
- — his  life,  this  time,  his  life,  his  life! 3i 
Gladys  literally  cowered  under  this  storm 

183 


THE    ORDEAL' 


of  words,  as  if  the  pitiless  hail  had  beaten 
on  her  own  head.  But  as  Lillian,  her  arms 
outstretched,  her  voice  broken  into  shrill 
cries,  rushed  to  the  door,  Mrs.  Briscoe 
sprang  forward,  caught  her  arm,  and  sought 
to  detain  her.  "  What  are  you  going  to  do, 
Lillian? " 

"  To  raise  the  country-side,  the  county — 
to  search  for  all  that  the  storm  and  the  floods 
and  that  baneful  wroman  have  left  of  him! " 

She  broke  away  hastily  from  the  restrain 
ing  clutch  of  Gladys,  who,  following  her 
closely,  saw  her  reel  backward  as  if  in 
shrinking  affright  from  a  shadowy  figure 
standing  in  the  dim  hall. 


184 


X. 

JULIAN  BAYNE.,  his  long  coat  covered  with 
snow  and  jingling  with  icicles,  his  chill  face 
scarlet  with  cold,  his  lips  emitting  a  cloud 
of  visible  breath,  his  eyes  intent  beneath  the 
brim  of  his  frost-rimmed  hat,  stood  gazing 
as  if  petrified  by  the  strange  scene  he  had 
witnessed  just  enacted  within,  the  strange 
words  he  had  overheard. 

"What  is  all  this?"  he  cried  at  length. 
"  Did  you  think  I  could  n't  make  it?  "  Then 
to  Lillian  specially,  as  he  took  her  hand, 
"Am  I  late?"  he  asked  solicitously.  "  I 
made  all  the  speed  I  could.  I  hope  I  have  n't 
killed  the  horse." 

He  glanced  over  his  shoulder  through  the 
open  door,  where  he  could  see  a  bit  of  the 
snowy  drive,  on  which  the  groom  was  slowly 
leading  the  animal,  heavily  blanketed,  up 
and  down  before  taking  him  to  the  stable. 

185 


THE    ORDEAL 


Although  sobbing  now  and  again  from  the 
stress  of  his  exertions,  the  horse  had  evi 
dently  sustained  no  permanent  injury. 

"  I  came  instantly,"  Julian  repeated. 
"What  is  it?" 

"Nothing!"  cried  Lillian  hysterically, 
clinging  to  his  arm.  "  They  all  think  it  is 
nothing — nothing  at  all." 

He  stared  at  her  somewhat  grimly,  though 
evidently  mystified. 

"  Come,"  he  said,  "  let  us  get  at  the  rights 
of  this.  And  I'd  really  like  a  glimpse  of  the 
fire— I'm  half  frozen." 

He  threw  off  his  overcoat,  stiffened  with 
the  ice,  and  strode  into  the  library  toward 
the  blazing  hearth.  Mrs.  Marable  was  sud 
denly  roused  to  remember  the  decoction  that 
she  herself  had  prepared,  and  put  the  glass 
into  his  hand.  But  he  took  only  a  single 
swallow,  gazing  in  absorption  at  Gladys, 
who  had  undertaken  to  detail  the  discovery 

186 


THE    ORDEAL 


of  the  stone  in  the  pocket  of  the  little  red 
coat,  and  the  theory  that  Mrs.  Royston  had 
desperately  based  upon  it.  Lillian  herself 
was  hanging  her  head  in  shame  for  her  folly, 
that  she  should  for  this  fantastic  illusion 
have  inflicted  on  this  man  of  all  men,  on 
whom  indeed  she  had  least  claim,  the  agony 
he  had  endured,  and  the  peril  of  his  life. 

She  could  never  have  described  the  over 
whelming  tumult  of  her  heart  when  he  lifted 
his  head  at  the  end  of  the  story,  with  a  look 
of  grave  and  intent  pondering. 

4  This  stone  is  the  efflorescence  of  a  lime 
stone  cavern,  given  to  him,  no  doubt,  but 
when  and  where?  And  how  is  it  that  you 
did  not  know  it,  knowing  his  every  thought?" 
he  said  in  a  tense,  excited  voice. 

Lillian  was  on  her  feet  again  in  an  in 
stant,  her  eyes  shining,  her  cheeks  flushed, 
her  voice  trembling.  "  Oh,  Julian,  you  think 
it  is  possible  that  Archie  is  alive!  Oh,  I 

187 


THE    ORDEAL 


believe  it!  I  believe  it!  And  the  thought 
is  like  the  elixir  of  life,  like  the  ecstasy  of 
heaven !  " 

He  made  no  direct  reply,  but  turned  has 
tily  to  go  to  the  telephone.  '  You  cannot 
afford  to  lose  any  chance,  even  the  most  re 
mote.  The  county  officers  must  be  notified, 
advertisements  sent  out,  and  offers  of  re 
ward.  There  is  not  a  moment  to  be  wasted." 

"  But  Gladys  thinks  it  is  a  folly,"  cried 
Lillian,  following  him  into  the  hall,  eager  to 
test  the  negative  view,  fearful  of  her  trem 
bling  hope;  "and  my  aunt  is  troubled  for 
my  sanity." 

As  he  waited  for  the  line,  which  was 
"  busy,"  he  turned  and  sternly  surveyed  her. 
'  Why  should  you  defer  to  their  views, 
Lillian  ?  Haven't  you  yet  had  enough  of  or 
dering  your  life  by  the  standards  of  others? 
Be  yourself — if  you  have  any  identity  left 
at  this  late  day.  Rely  on  your  own  judg- 

188 


THE    ORDEAL 


ment,  consult  your  own  intuitions,  rest  on 
your  own  sense  of  right  and  justice  and  con 
science,  and  you  cannot  err!  " 

"Oh,  Julian!"  she  exclaimed  in  tearful 
amaze.  "  How  can  you  say  that  of  me — of 
me?  " 

He  looked  startled  for  one  moment,  as  if 
he  had  spoken  inadvertently,  for  her  guid 
ance,  his  inmost  thought,  without  regard  to 
its  personal  significance.  Then,  with  a  ris 
ing  flush  and  a  conscious  eye,  he  sought  to 
laugh  off  the  episode.  "  Oh,  well,  I  didn't 
mean  it,  you  know!  Only  the  compliments 
of  the  newly  arrived."  And  as  the  bell 
jingled  he  took  down  the  receiver  with  ob 
vious  relief. 

In  the  presence  of  poor  Gladys,  for  whose 
calamity  there  could  be  no  prospect  of  alle 
viation,  the  subject  of  Briscoe's  death  and 
the  child's  abduction  as  connected  therewith 
could  not  be  discussed  in  all  its  bearings. 

189 


THE    ORDEAL 


Only  Mrs.  Marable  joined  Lillian  in  the 
library  that  afternoon  when  the  sheriff  ar 
rived,  and  the  mother's  eager  hopes  were 
strengthened  to  note  the  serious  importance 
he  attached  to  the  discovery  of  the  bit  of 
stone  in  the  pocket  of  the  little  red  coat. 
He  was  obviously  nettled  that  it  should  have 
remained  there  unnoted  while  the  garment 
was  in  his  keeping,  but  Lillian  tactfully  ex 
hibited  the  unusual  inner  pocket  in  the  fac 
ing,  the  "  shy  pocket,"  which,  thus  located, 
offered  some  excuse  for  the  failure  to  find 
earlier  its  contents.  With  Julian  Bayne's 
suggestions,  the  sheriff  presently  hammered 
out  a  theory  very  closely  related  to  the  truth. 
The  visit  of  the  revenue  officer  was  detailed 
by  Bayne,  and  considered  significant,  the 
more  since  it  began  to  be  evident  that  Briscoe 
was  murdered,  and  in  his  case  a  motive  for 
so  perilous  a  deed  was  wholly  lacking.  The 
stone  lily  in  the  child's  pocket  made  it  evi- 

190 


THE    ORDEAL 


dent  that  he  himself  had  been  in  the  moon 
shiners'  cavern,  the  only  one  known  to  the 
vicinity,  or  that  the  stone  had  been  given  to 
him  by  some  frequenter  of  that  den — hardly 
to  be  supposed  previous  to  the  catastrophe. 
In  fact,  the  sheriff  declared  that  he  had 
reason  to  believe  that  the  child  was  wearing 
the  coat  at  the  time  of  the  tragedy,  and  thus 
it  could  not  have  been  cast  loosely  from  the 
vehicle  at  the  moment  when  the  mare  had 
fallen  from  the  bluff  to  the  depths  below. 
It  had  been  restored  to  the  locality  in  a 
clumsy  effort  to  prove  the  child's  death. 

The  officer  was  a  big,  burly  man,  hand 
some  in  his  way,  his  ponderosity  suggesting 
a  formidable  development  of  muscle  rather 
than  fat.  His  manner  was  as  weighty  as  his 
appearance.  He  seemed  as  if  he  might  have 
been  manufactured  in  a  tobacco  factory,  so 
was  the  whole  man  permeated  by  nicotian 
odors  of  various  sorts,  but  he  politely  de- 

191 


THE    ORDEAL 


clined  to  smoke  during  the  long  and  wear 
ing  consultation,  even  with  the  permission 
of  the  ladies  present,  and  stowed  away 
in  his  breast  pocket  the  cigars  that  Bayne 
pressed  upon  him,  as  he  remarked,  for 
reference  at  a  moment  of  greater  leisure. 
Bolt  upright,  a  heavy  hand  on  either  big- 
boned  knee,  his  shaven  jowl  drooping  in 
fleshy  folds  over  his  high  stiff  collar,  he  sat 
gazing  into  the  fire  with  round,  small,  gray, 
bullet-like  eyes,  while  the  top  of  his  bald 
head  grew  pink  and  shining  with  warmth. 
He  had  a  loud,  countrified  voice  in  his  nor 
mal  speech,  that  gave  an  intimation  of  a 
habit  of  hallooing  to  hounds  in  a  fox-chase, 
or  calling  the  cattle  on  a  thousand  hills,  but 
it  had  sunk  to  a  mysterious  undertone  when 
he  next  spoke,  expressive  of  the  importance 
of  the  disclosure  he  was  about  to  make. 

A   few  days   previous,   he   said,   he   had 
chanced  to  arrest  an  Irish  mechanic  who, 

192 


THE    ORDEAL 


during  the  season,  had  been  employed  at  the 
neighboring  hotel  in  replacing  some  plaster 
that  had  fallen  by  reason  of  leakage.    Since 
then,  a  hard  drinking  man,  he  had  been 
idly  loafing,  occasionally  jobbing,  about  the 
country,  but  the  offence  charged  was  that 
of  being  concerned  in  a  wholesale  dynamit 
ing  of  fish  in  the  Tennessee  River  some 
months  ago.     The  man  protested  violently 
against  his  arrest,  being  unable  to  procure 
bail,  and  declared  he  could  prove  an  alibi 
but  for  fear  that  a  worse  thing  befall  him. 
This  singular  statement  so  stimulated  the 
officer's  curiosity  that  his  craft  was  enlisted 
to  elicit  the  whole  story.    Little  by  little  he 
secured  its  details.     It  seemed  that  on  the 
day  when  the  fish  were  dynamited  contrary 
to  law,  the  Irishman  was  some  thirty  miles 
distant  from  the  spot — the  day  of  the  Bris- 
coe  tragedy.     He  believed  that  he  was  the 
last  man  who  had  seen  Briscoe  alive — unless 

13  193 


THE    ORDEAL 


indeed  he  were  done  to  death.  He  was  afoot, 
walking  in  the  county  road,  not  more  than 
two  miles  from  the  vacant  hotel,  when  he 
saw  a  dog-cart  coming  like  the  wind  to 
ward  him.  The  gentleman,  driving  a  splen 
did  mare,  checked  his  speed  on  catching 
sight  of  him,  and  called  out  to  him.  Upon 
approaching,  he  recognized  Mr.  Briscoe, 
whom  he  had  often  seen  when  at  work  at 
the  neighboring  hotel.  On  this  occasion  Mr. 
Briscoe  asked  him  to  hold  the  mare  while 
he  slipped  a  coat  on  the  little  boy  whom 
he  had  in  the  dog-cart  with  him — a  red  coat 
it  was — for  it  took  all  he  knew  to  drive 
the  mare  with  both  hands.  And  the  Irish 
man  declared  it  took  all  he  knew  to  hold 
the  mare  for  the  single  minute  required  to 
slip  the  child  into  the  coat.  Twice  the 
plunging  animal  lifted  him  off  his  feet  as 
he  swung  to  the  bit.  But  the  gentleman 
did  not  forget  to  pay  him  royally.  Mr. 

194 


THE    ORDEAL 


Briscoe  tossed  him  a  dollar,  and  then,  with 
"  the  little  bye  in  his  red  coat "  sitting  on 
the  floor  of  the  vehicle,  he  was  off  like  a 
cyclone  and  out  of  sight  in  a  moment.  Al 
most  immediately  afterward  the  Irishman 
heard  the  sharp  crack  of  a  rifle,  and  a  tu 
multuous  crash,  as  of  some  heavy  fall  into 
the  depths  of  the  valley.  To  his  mind,  the 
sound  of  the  weapon  intimated  some  catas 
trophe,  and  he  said  nothing  at  the  time  as 
to  his  meeting  with  Mr.  Briscoe.  That  cir 
cumstance  seemed  to  him  of  no  importance. 
He  was  afraid  of  being  numbered  among 
the  suspects  if  any  evil  deed  had  been  done. 
He  heard  the  searching  parties  out  all  night, 
and  it  was  a  terrible  sound !  "It  was  too  aisy 
fur  a  poor  man  to  be  laid  by  the  heels  fur 
a  job  he  niver  done,  bedad,  as  was  the  case  at 
present."  He  permitted  himself,  however, 
to  be  persuaded  to  let  a  charge  of  vagrancy 
be  entered  against  him  and  go  to  jail,  really 

195 


THE    ORDEAL 


to  be  held  as  a  witness  in  the  event  of  more 
developments  in  the  Briscoe  case;  for  the 
authorities  desired  that  no  arrests  in  that 
connection  should  be  made  public  until  the 
significance  of  the  fact  that  at  the  time  of  the 
tragedy  the  child  was  wearing  the  coat — 
afterward  found  hanging  loose,  without  a 
rent  or  a  blemish,  on  the  tree  in  the  valley — 
should  be  fully  exploited.  If  it  were  indeed 
a  direful  instance  of  murder  and  abduction, 
as  the  sheriff  now  believed,  he  wished  the 
miscreants  to  rest  unwitting  of  the  activity 
of  the  officers  and  the  menace  of  discovery. 

"  But  it  seems  a  pity  for  the  poor  inno 
cent  Irishman  to  have  to  stay  in  jail.  How 
good  of  him  to  consent!"  exclaimed  Mrs. 
Marable  pathetically. 

The  sheriff  was  all  unacclimated  to  the 
suave  altruism  of  fashionable  circles.  His 
literal  eyebrows  went  up  to  an  angle  of 
forty-five  degrees;  he  turned  his  belittling 

196 


THE    ORDEAL 


eyes  on  Mrs.  Marable,  as  if  she  were  a  very 
inconsiderable  species  of  wren,  suddenly  de 
veloping  a  capacity  for  disproportionate 
mischief.  "  Not  at  all,  madam,"  he  made 
haste  to  say.  "  He  can  be  legally  held  for 
a  witness,  lest  he  get  away  and  out  of  reach 
of  a  subpoena.  It  is  the  right  of  the  State, 
and  of  Mrs.  Briscoe  as  well,  who  will  doubt 
less  join  the  public  prosecution.  We  are 
asking  nothing  of  nobody,  and  taking  noth 
ing  off  nobody,  neither." 

"  But  I  should  like,"  said  Lillian,  "  to  ar 
range  that  he  shall  suffer  no  hardship.  I 
shall  be  happy  to  defray  any  expense  to 
make  him  thoroughly  comfortable." 

The  sheriff  looked  down  on  feminine  in 
telligence.  The  law  was  exclusively  man's 
affair.  He  made  it  and  administered  it. 
The  officer  had  seldom  known  women  to  in 
trude  into  it,  save  to  get  the  worst  of  it.  Its 
minister  had  an  air  of  burly  ridicule  that 

197 


THE    ORDEAL 


trenched  on  contempt  as  he  broke  into  a 
laugh  of  great  relish. 

'  The  county  can  accommodate  its  board 
ers  without  your  help,  Mrs.  Royston.  Much 
obliged,  all  the  same.  He  ain't  no  nice  cus 
tomer.  He  is  mighty  lucky  to  be  sure  of 
his  grub  and  fire  and  shelter  this  tough  win 
ter.  He  ain't  got  to  do  any  work.  He  has 
the  freedom  of  the  yard  and  the  halls  and 
the  office  at  all  hours.  No,  madam,  he  is  as 
snug  as  a  bug  in  a  rug.  You'll  have  a 
chance  to  spend  all  the  money  that  you  care 
to  put  up  in  this  affair,  if  I'm  not  mightily 
mistaken.  No  use  in  wastin'  any  of  it  on 
Micky." 

The  fact  that  the  child  had  not  been  wear 
ing  the  coat  when  starting  on  the  drive,  but 
had  been  seen  in  it  immediately  previous  to 
the  catastrophe;  that  it  should  be  subse 
quently  found  and  not  on  his  body,  of  which 
no  trace  had  ever  been  discovered,  went  far 

198 


THE    ORDEAL 


to  convince  the  authorities  that  the  garment 
had  been  restored  to  the  locality  afterward 
in  pursuance  of  an  effort  to  prove  his  death. 
They  had  begun  to  believe  that  the  child  had 
in  some  manner  escaped  at  the  time  of  the 
tragedy,  and  was  now  held  in  retreat  lest 
he  disclose  incriminating  evidence.  But  it 
was  a  barren  triumph  of  logic.  They  re 
alized  that  any  demand  of  the  reward  of 
fered  must  needs  bring  a  counter  inquiry 
concerning  the  facts  of  Briscoe's  murder,  and 
therefore  from  the  beginning  they  had 
little  hope  that  any  good  result  would  ensue 
from  the  wide  publicity  and  the  extended 
search  that  his  mother  and  her  adviser  had 
inaugurated.  The  child  remained  as  if 
caught  up  in  the  clouds.  Though  extrava 
gant  offers  of  reward  for  any  information 
concerning  him,  as  well  as  for  his  ultimate 
recovery,  were  scattered  broadcast  through 
out  the  country;  though  every  clue,  however 

199 


THE    ORDEAL 


fantastic  or  tenuous  or  obviously  fraudulent, 
was  as  cautiously  examined  as  if  it  really 
held  the  nucleus  of  discovery;  though  fakers 
and  cheats  of  preposterous  sorts  harassed 
the  proceedings  and  wrought  many  malevo 
lent  bits  of  mischief  in  disappointed  revenge, 
being  treated  with  a  leniency  which  would 
suffer  aught,  all,  rather  than  clog  any  vague 
chance  of  a  revelation  of  the  seclusion  of  the 
lost  child — there  seemed  no  prospect,  no 
hope. 

It  had  been  Lillian's  instinct  to  continue 
in  the  place  where  the  child  had  been  last 
seen — she  felt  a  fictitious  sense  of  proximity 
in  the  familiar  localities  that  had  known 
him.  But  with  the  exigencies  of  the  sys 
tematic  effort  for  his  recovery  she  returned 
to  her  own  home  in  the  city  of  Glaston, 
whither  Gladys  accompanied  her,  as  being 
more  accessible  when  her  presence  in  the 
search  was  required. 

200 


THE    ORDEAL 


Julian  Bayne  gave  himself  wholly  to  the 
effort.  He  travelled  here  and  there,  pervad 
ing  the  country  like  some  spirit  of  unrest, 
threading  the  intricacies  of  city  slums,  north, 
south,  east,  and  west,  personally  interview 
ing  all  manner  of  loathly  creatures,  dam 
aged  by  vice  and  sloth  and  ignorance  and 
crime  almost  out  of  all  semblance  of  hu 
manity.  He  had  not  dreamed  that  such  be 
ings  existed  upon  the  earth.  Sometimes, 
unaware  of  the  circumstances  and  the  dan 
ger  they  courted,  they  caught  up  a  child 
wherewith  to  deceive  him,  if  it  might  be, 
generally  a  pitiable,  puny  thing,  swarming 
with  vermin,  half  famished  and  forlorn.  But 
Julian  was  dubious  how  ill  treatment  and 
lack  of  nourishment  might  have  transformed 
the  heir  of  the  proud  Archibald  Royston, 
and  in  each  instance  he  summoned  Lillian 
through  long  journeys,  tortured  with  alter 
nations  of  hope  and  suspense,  to  inspect  the 

201 


THE    ORDEAL 


waif.  All  without  avail.  True,  she  invari 
ably  bettered  the  condition  of  the  little  crea 
ture,  thus  fortunate  in  attracting  her  notice, 
purveying  clothes  and  food,  and  paying  a 
good  round  price  for  the  consent  of  its  keep 
ers  to  place  it  in  some  orphanage  or  other 
juvenile  refuge.  So  exhaustive,  so  judi 
cious,  so  tireless,  was  the  search,  so  rich  the 
reward,  that  as  time  went  by  and  no  result 
ensued,  the  authorities  became  more  than 
ever  convinced  that  since  the  child's  abduc 
tion  was  complicated  with  the  more  des 
perate  crime  of  Briscoe's  murder,  this  effec 
tually  precluded  any  attempt  at  his  restora 
tion  by  the  kidnappers;  for  indeed,  to  those 
who  knew  the  facts,  the  large  reward  was 
obviously  the  price  of  a  halter.  As  this  the 
ory  gained  strength,  their  ardor  in  the  search 
declined,  and  Lillian  and  Julian  realized  that 
more  than  ever  the  child's  restoration  would 
depend  on  their  individual  exertions. 

202 


THE    ORDEAL 


The  effort  came  to  seem  an  obsession  on 
the  part  of  Bayne.  He  was  worn  and 
weary;  his  business  interest  languished,  and 
his  friends,  remonstrating  in  vain,  regarded 
it  as  the  culminating  injury  to  his  life  and 
prospects  already  wrought  by  the  influence 
of  this  woman. 

Indeed,  one  of  the  chief  difficulties  of  the 
continuance  of  the  enterprise  was  the  resist 
ance  they  must  needs  maintain  to  the  re 
monstrance  of  friends.  This  finally  came 
to  be  so  urgent  that  it  even  involved  an 
effort  to  circumscribe  the  futile  activities. 
In  view  of  the  provisions  of  Mr.  Royston's 
will  no  portion  of  the  minor's  estate  could 
be  used  to  defray  the  extremely  lavish  ex 
penses  that  the  thoroughness  and  extent  of 
the  search  involved.  All  the  large  disburse 
ments  of  money  came  from  Mrs.  Royston's 
own  share  of  her  husband's  fortune.  This 
brought  her  uncle,  Mr.  Marable,  into  the 


THE    ORDEAL 


discussion.  Her  resources  would  not  sustain 
these  heavy  draughts,  he  urged.  In  case  the 
child  remained  perdu,  to  be  sure,  and  the 
legal  presumption  of  his  death  obtain  by  rea 
son  of  the  lapse  of  time,  his  estate  would  by 
the  terms  of  the  will  vest  in  her,  and  thus  fi 
nancially  all  might  be  well.  But  on  the  con 
trary,  should  he  be  found  in  the  course  of 
time,  this  wild  extravagance  would  result 
in  bankrupting  her.  She  thought  it  neces 
sary  to  keep  detectives  in  constant  pay  to 
hold  their  efforts  and  interest  to  the  search, 
even  though  the  ultimate  rich  reward  were 
dangled  continually  before  their  eyes.  The 
flamboyant  advertisements,  the  widespread 
publicity  over  half  the  world,  had  involved 
commensurate  cost.  Large  sums  had  been 
disbursed  for  information  merely  that  was 
rooted  in  error  and  bore  only  disappoint 
ment.  Then,  too,  were  the  inevitable  mis 
takes,  the  fakes  and  cheats,  and  the  expenses 

204 


THE    ORDEAL 


of  a  score  of  agents  effecting  nothing. 
Mr.  Marable  rubbed  the  wisps  of  gray  hair 
on  either  side  of  his  corrugated  temples, 
and  wrung  his  solvent  hands  in  financial 
anguish. 

He  sought  in  this  cause  to  take  advantage 
of  Bayne's  influence  with  Lillian,  and  made 
an  effort  to  induce  him  to  remonstrate  with 
her.  They  were  in  the  library  of  her  house 
in  Glaston,  looking  over  some  papers  to 
gether,  a  real  estate  mortgage,  in  fact,  by 
which  Lillian  intended  to  raise  a  large  sum 
for  more  unrestricted  use  in  the  extension 
of  the  search. 

Bayne  sat  at  the  table,  scanning  the 
money-lender's  memoranda,  his  experience 
as  a  broker  having  developed  a  keen  scent 
for  any  untoward  or  mischievous  detail. 

"  But  in  seeking  the  wisest  methods  of 
economy,  the  essential  opportunity  may  es 
cape  her.  While  she  is  financiering,  the 

205 


THE    ORDEAL 


child  may  die  in  the  hands  of  his  abductors, 
or  he  may  succumb  to  hardship  otherwise- 
be  disfigured  by  disease  or  disabled  by  ex 
posure,  or  slaughtered,  so  to  speak,  mentally 
or  morally,  or  spirited  away  and  be  heard  of 
never  again.  No,  no,"  Bayne  declared  defi 
nitely;  "  I  could  not  advise  her  to  consider 
money  in  this  connection." 

Mr.  Marable  could  ill  brook  contradiction 
or  dissent.  He  quivered  with  more  than  the 
infirmities  of  age  as  he  stood  by  the  table, 
supporting  himself  on  his  cane. 

"You  don't  reflect,  Mr.  Bayne,  that 
though  she  gets  the  child's  estate  if  he  dies 
or  continues  lost — if  he  lives  and  this  ex 
penditure  goes  on,  she  will  be  penniless— 
you  don't  realize  that.  She  will  be  a  poor 
woman — she  will  have  nothing  left  of  her 
provision  as  a  widow." 

"  Well,  that  suits  me  to  the  ground," 
Bayne  retorted  unexpectedly.  "  I  shall  be 

206 


THE    ORDEAL 


glad  to  profit  as  little  as  possible  by  Mr. 
Royston's  property." 

The  notary  public,  come  to  take  Mrs. 
Royston's  acknowledgment,  was  announced 
at  the  moment,  and  the  two  gentlemen,  still 
wrangling,  went  into  the  reception  room  to 
meet  him.  Mrs.  Marable,  her  eternal  Bat- 
tenberg  in  her  hands,  looked  up  through  the 
meshes  of  a  perplexity,  as  visible  as  if  it 
were  a  veritable  network,  at  Gladys,  who 
was  standing  in  the  recess  of  the  bay-win 
dow,  a  book  in  her  hand. 

"  I  didn't  understand  that  remark  of  Mr. 
Bayne's  as  to  the  poverty  of  Mr.  Royston's 
widow,"  the  old  lady  submitted. 

Gladys,  the  match-maker,  laughed  de 
lightedly.  fe  I  did!  "  she  cried  triumphantly. 

As  she  went  out  of  the  room,  she  encoun 
tered  Lillian  in  the  hall,  summoned  to  sign 
and  acknowledge  the  papers.  The  flush  on 
the  cheek  of  Gladys,  the  triumph  in  her  eyes, 

207 


THE    ORDEAL 


the  laugh  in  the  curves  of  her  beautiful  lips, 
arrested  Mrs.  Royston's  attention.  "  What 
are  you  laughing  about?"  she  asked,  in  a 
sort  of  plaintive  wonderment. 

"  About  something  that  Julian  said  just 


now." 


"  What  was  it?  "  Lillian  queried,  still  be 
wildered  in  a  sort. 

The  flush  deepened  on  Mrs.  Briscoe's 
cheek,  her  eyes  were  full  of  light,  her  voice 
chimed  with  a  sort  of  secret  joy. 

"  I  will  not  tell  you!  "  she  cried,  and,  still 
smiling,  she  floated  down  the  hall,  her  book 
in  her  hand. 

Lillian  stood  motionless  in  amaze.  Some 
thing  that  Julian  Bayne  had  said  to  work 
this  metamorphosis!  Something  that  she 
must  not  hear,  must  not  know!  The  look 
in  her  friend's  eyes,  the  tone  of  her  voice, 
stayed  with  Lillian  in  every  moment  of  sur 
cease  of  torment  for  the  child's  rescue,  and 

208 


THE    ORDEAL 


worked  their  own  mission  of  distress.  Had 
she  thought  indeed  that  she  could  hold  Ju 
lian  Bayne's  heart  through  all  vicissitudes 
of  weal  and  woe,  of  time  and  change?  She 
had  of  her  own  free  choice  thrown  it  away 
once  as  a  thing  of  no  worth.  She  had  never 
justified  her  course,  or  thought  it  could  be 
deemed  admirable  as  an  exponent  of  her 
character.  And  here  she  was  constantly 
contrasted  with  a  woman  who  had  no  fault, 
no  foible,  who  was  generous,  whole-souled, 
splendid,  and  beautiful,  already  with  a 
strong  hold  on  his  affections,  close  to  him, 
the  widow  of  his  cousin  who  was  always  the 
friend  of  his  heart.  And  so  sweet  she  was, 
so  unconscious  of  any  thought  of  rivalry! 
That  night  she  came  late  to  Lillian's  room 
to  say  good-night  once  more,  to  counsel  hope, 
and  urge  an  effort  to  sleep.  Even  when  she 
seemed  gone  at  last,  she  opened  the  door 
again  to  blow  a  kiss  and  smile  anew.  When 

14  209 


THE    ORDEAL 


the  door  had  closed  finally  Lillian,  standing 
near  the  mirror,  could  but  note  the  differ 
ence.  She  was  ghastly  in  her  gay  and  mo 
dish  attire,  for  she  had  instantly  laid  aside 
her  mourning  for  the  death  of  the  boy,  as 
an  affront  to  her  faith  that  he  still  lived. 
The  sharp  tooth  of  suspense  had  eaten  into 
her  capacities  of  endurance;  her  hopes 
preyed  upon  her  in  their  keen,  fictitious  ex 
altations  ;  the  alternations  of  despair  brought 
her  to  the  brink  of  the  grave.  She  was  re 
duced  almost  to  a  shadow;  she  would  go 
about  the  affair — she  would  entertain  no 
other — with  a  sort  of  jerking,  spasmodic  ac 
tivity  as  unlike  muscular  energy  as  if  she 
were  an  automaton.  She  had  no  rest  in  her 
sleep,  and  would  scream  and  cry  out  in  weird 
accents  at  intervals,  and  dream  such  dreams ! 
She  would  blanch  when  questioned,  and  close 
her  lips  fast,  and  never  a  word  escaped  them 
of  what  these  visions  of  terror  might  be. 

210 


XI. 

How  the  mother-heart  would  have  re 
joiced  could  Lillian  have  divined  that  her 
child  was  well  and  happy,  though  affection 
ate  in  new  ties  while  she  languished  in  his 
absence !  Archie  had  begun  to  adore  the  old 
Indian  fortune-teller  who  cuddled  and  cod 
dled  him  in  loving  delight.  She  lived  for  a 
time  in  grievous  fear  of  his  departure,  but 
when  no  news  came  of  the  men  who  had 
placed  him  there,  and  the  date  fixed  for 
their  return  passed  without  event,  she  began 
to  gloat  on  the  possibility  of  desertion.  She 
tried  all  her  ancient  savage  spells  and  meth 
ods  of  forecast — many  strange  jugglings 
with  terrapin  shells  and  white  beads  and 
pointed  sticks  and  the  aspect  of  the  decoc 
tion  of  magic  herbs.  With  fervor,  she  gave 
herself  also  to  her  pagan  invocations  to  those 
spirits  of  Zootheism  and  personified  ele- 
211 


THE    ORDEAL 


ments  of  Nature,  so  real  even  to  the  modern 
Cherokee,  esteemed  so  potent  in  the  order 
ing  of  human  affairs.  Suddenly  her  hope 
glowed  into  triumph!  She  had  a  fantastic 
conviction  that  the  child  was  bound  fast. 
The  signs  intimated  that  the  great  mystic 
Red  Spider,  Kananiski  gigage,  had  woven 
his  unseen  web  about  the  boy,  and  he  could 
not  escape  from  those  constraining  meshes. 
As  to  the  men — she  concluded  that  they  were 
blown  away  somewhere.  The  wind  had  at 
tended  to  that  little  matter.  "  Agaluga  Heg- 
wa!  Atigale  yata  tsutu  negliga"  she  ex 
claimed  in  grateful  rapture.  ("Oh,  great 
Whirlwind!  By  you  they  must  have  been 
scattered.") 

Happiness  had  long  held  aloof.  She  was 
of  the  poorest  of  the  tribe;  childless,  for 
many  years;  a  widow;  she  suffered  much 
from  rheumatism;  she  was  slowly  going 
blind ;  she  was  deemed  unlucky  and  avoided. 

212 


THE    ORDEAL 


For  more  than  once  of  late  years  she  had 
in  important  crises  predicted  disaster,  and 
this  prophecy,  by  fortuitous  circumstances, 
had  been  fulfilled ;  thus  those  to  whom  a  de 
ceitful  hope  is  preferable  to  a  warning  of 
trouble  sought  by  fleeing  the  oracle  to  elude 
the  misfortune.  Being  esteemed  a  witch, 
and  associated  with  dark  dealings  and  prone 
to  catastrophe,  she  lived  in  peculiar  solitude, 
and  the  two  spent  the  long  months  of  the 
winter  within  the  cabin  together,  while  the 
mountain  snows  lay  heavy  on  the  eaves  and 
the  mountain  winds  beat  and  gibed  at  the 
door.  Great  icicles  hung  from  the  dark  fis 
sures  of  the  crags ;  frosty  scintillations  tipped 
the  fibres  of  the  pines ;  wolves  were  a-prowl 
—sometimes  their  blood-curdling  howls 
from  afar  penetrated  to  the  hut  where  the 
ill-assorted  companions  sat  together  in  the 
red  glow  of  the  fire,  and  roasted  their  sweet 
potatoes  and  apples  on  the  hearth,  and 

213 


THE    ORDEAL 


cracked  nuts  to  pound  into  the  rich  paste 
affected  by  the  Cherokees,  and  drank  the 
bland  "  hominy- water,"  and  gazed  happily 
into  each  other's  eyes,  despite  their  distance 
apart  at  the  two  termini  of  life,  the  begin 
ning  and  the  end. 

As  she  could  speak  no  English,  yet  they 
must  needs  find  a  medium  of  exchange  for 
their  valuable  views,  she  tried  to  teach  him 
to  speak  Cherokee.  He  was  a  bird,  her  lit 
tle  bird,  she  told  him  by  signs,  and  his  name 
was  Tsiskwa.  This  she  repeated  again  and 
again  in  the  velvet-soft  fluting  of  her  voice. 
But  no !  he  revolted.  His  name  was  Archie 
Royston,  he  declaimed  proudly.  He  soon 
became  the  monarch  of  this  poor  hearth,  and 
he  deported  himself  in  royal  fashion. 

"  Oo  tan't  talk,"  he  said  patronizingly  to 
her  one  day,  after  listening  in  futile  serious 
ness  to  her  unintelligible  jargon.  Forth 
with  he  essayed  to  teach  her  to  speak  Eng- 

214 


THE    ORDEAL 


lish,  and,  humoring  his  every  freak,  she 
sought  to  profit.  She  would  fix  intent  eyes 
upon  him  and  turn  her  head  askew  to  lis 
ten  heedfully  while  she  lisped  after  his  lisp 
ing  exposition  of  "  Archie  Royston."  He 
grew  heady  with  his  sense  of  erudition.  He 
would  fairly  roll  on  the  puncheon  floor  in 
the  vainglory  of  his  delight  when  she  identi 
fied  chair  and  fire  and  bed  and  door  by  their 
accurate  English  names.  Sometimes,  in  a 
surge  of  emotion,  hardly  gratitude  or  a 
sense  of  comfort,  neither  trust  nor  hope, 
but  the  sheer  joy  of  love,  the  child  would 
come  at  her  in  a  tumultuous  rush,  cast  him 
self  in  her  arms,  and  cover  her  face  with 
kisses — the  face  that  had  at  first  so  terri 
fied  him,  that  was  so  typical  of  cruelty  and 
craft  and  repellent  pride.  Then  as  they 
nestled  together  they  would  repeat  in  con 
cert — poor  woman!  perhaps  she  thought  it 
a  mystic  invocation  charged  with  some  po- 

215 


THE    ORDEAL 


tent  power  of  prayer  or  magic — "  Ding- 
dong-bell  !  "  and  the  comparative  biographies 
of  little  Johnny  Green  and  little  Johnny 
Stout,  and  the  vicissitudes  of  the  poor  pussy 
cat  submitted  to  their  diverse  ministrations. 
He  was  wont  to  sing  for  her  also,  albeit 
tunelessly,  and  as  he  sat  blond  and  roseate 
and  gay,  warbling  after  his  fashion  on  the 
hearth,  her  clouded  old  eyes  were  relumed 
with  a  radiance  that  came  from  within  and 
was  independent  of  the  prosaic  light  of  day. 
His  favorite  ditty  was  an  old  nursery 
rhyme  in  which  the  name  "  Pretty  Polly 
Hopkins  "  occurs  with  flattering  iteration, 
and  he  began  to  apply  it  to  her,  for  he  had 
come  to  think  her  very  beautiful — such  is 
the  gracious  power  of  love!  And  while  the 
snow  was  flying,  and  the  sleet  and  hail 
tinkled  on  the  batten  shutter,  and  the 
draughts  bleated  and  whined  in  the  crevices, 
he  made  the  rafters  ring: 

216 


THE    ORDEAL 


"  '  Pretty,  pretty  Polly  Hopkins, 

How  de  do  ? — how  de  do  ?  ' 
"  *  None  the  better,  Tommy  Tompkins, 

For  seeing  you,  for  seeing  you ! ' 
"  '  Polly,  I've  been  to  France 

And  there  spent  all  my  cash.' 
"  '  More  the  fool  for  you,  Mister  Tompkins, 

Fool  for  you,  fool  for  you ! '  " 

It  was  a  valuable  course  in  linguistics  for 
the  inmates  of  the  cabin,  and  Archie  Royston 
was  far  more  intelligible  and  skilled  in  ex 
pressing  himself  when  that  door,  that  had 
been  closed  on  the  keen  blast,  was  opened  to 
let  in  the  suave  spring  sunshine  and  the  soft 
freshness  of  the  mountain  air. 


XII. 

WITH  the  return  of  fine  weather  the  work 
of  railroad  construction  on  the  extension  of 
the  .G.  T.  &  C.  line  began  to  be  pressed 
forward  with  eager  alacrity.  Indeed,  it  had 
languished  only  when  the  ground  was  deeply 
covered  with  snow  or  locked  so  fast  in  the 
immobile  freeze  that  steel  and  iron  could 
not  penetrate  it.  The  work  had  been  per 
sistently  pushed  at  practicable  intervals, 
whenever  the  labor  could  be  constrained  to 
it.  Possibly  this  urgency  had  no  ill  results 
except  in  one  or  two  individual  cases.  The 
sons  of  toil  are  indurated  to  hardship,  and 
most  of  the  gang  were  brawny  Irish  ditchers. 
Jubal  Clenk,  already  outworn  with  age  and 
ill  nourished  throughout  a  meagre  life,  un 
accustomed,  too,  to  exposure  to  the  ele 
ments  (for  the  industry  of  moonshining  is  a 
sheltered  and  well-warmed  business),  was 
the  only  notable  collapse.  He  began  by 

218 


THE    ORDEAL 


querulously  demanding  of  anyone  who 
would  listen  to  him  what  he  himself  could 
mean  by  having  an  "  out-dacious  pain  "  un 
der  his  shoulder-blade.  "  I  feel  like  I  hev 
been  knifed,  that's  whut!  "  he  would  declare. 
This  symptom  was  presently  succeeded  by  a 
"  misery  in  his  breast-bone,"  and  a  racking 
cough  seemed  likely  to  shake  to  pieces  his 
old  skeleton,  growing  daily  more  percep 
tible  under  his  dry,  shrivelled  skin.  A  fever 
shortly  set  in,  but  it  proved  of  scanty 
interest  to  the  local  physician,  when  called 
by  the  boss  of  the  construction  gang  to  look 
in  upon  him,  in  one  of  the  rickety  shacks 
which  housed  the  force  of  laborers,  and 
which  was  his  temporary  home. 

'  There's  no  show  for  him,"  the  doctor  la 
conically  remarked.  "  Lungs,  heart,  throat, 
all  have  got  into  the  game.  You  had  better 
get  rid  of  him — he  will  never  be  of  any  use 
again." 

"Throw  him  over  the  bluff,  eh?"  the 

219 


THE    ORDEAL 


jolly,  portly  boss  asked  with  a  twinkling  eye. 
"  We  ain't  much  on  transportation  yet." 

"  Well,  it's  no  great  matter.  He'll  pro 
vide  his  own  transportation  before  long;" 
and  the  physician  stepped  into  his  buggy 
with  an  air  of  finality. 

The  old  man  had,  however,  unsuspected 
reserves  of  vitality.  He  crept  out  into  the 
sunshine  again,  basking  in  the  vernal 
warmth  with  a  sense  of  luxury,  and  enter 
ing  into  the  gossip  of  the  ditchers  with  an 
unwonted  mental  activity  and  garrulity. 

One  day — one  signal  day — as  he  sat 
clumped  up  on  a  pile  of  timber  destined  for 
railroad  ties,  his  arms  hugging  his  knees, 
his  eyes  feverishly  bright  and  hollow,  a  per 
sonal  interest  in  his  condition  was  developed 
in  the  minds  of  his  old  pals  and  fellow- 
laborers,  Drann  and  Holvey,  albeit  of  no 
humane  tendency.  It  was  the  nooning  hour, 
and  the  men  at  their  limited  leisure  lay  in 
220 


THE    ORDEAL 


the  sun  on  the  piles  of  lumber,  like  lizards. 

"Gee!"  exclaimed  one  burly  fellow,  ris 
ing  on  his  elbow.  "  How  I'd  like  ter  git  my 
paw  on  that  reward — five  thousand  dollars 
for  any  information !  " 

"  I'm  in  fur  money  ez  sure  ez  ye  air  born! 
All  signs  favor,"  exclaimed  old  Clenk  eag 
erly.  "  I  dream  about  money  mighty  nigh 
every  night.  Paid  in  ter  me — chink — 
chink — I  allus  takes  it  in  gold.  Goin'  ter 
bed  is  the  same  ter  me  that  goin'  ter  the 
bank  is  ter  most  folks." 

His  interpolations  into  the  conversation 
usually  failed  to  secure  even  a  contemptuous 
rebuff;  they  passed  as  if  unheard.  But  such 
is  the  coercive  power  of  gold,  albeit  in  the 
abstract,  that  this  tenuous  vision  of  wealth 
had  its  fascination.  The  brawny  workman 
held  the  newspaper  aside  to  look  curiously 
over  at  the  piteous  wreck,  as  the  old  raga 
muffin  grinned  and  giggled  in  joyous  retro- 
221 


THE    ORDEAL 


spect,  then  began  to  read  again  the  adver 
tisement:  "  Twenty-five  thousand  dollars  in 
cash  if  the  information  leads  to  the  recov 
ery  of  the  child." 

"  Do  they  head  them  advertisements 
'Suckers,  Attention'?"  asked  one  of  the 
men  who  labored  under  the  disadvantage  of 
illiteracy.  The  scraps  read  aloud  from  the 
papers  were  his  only  source  of  information 
as  to  their  contents.  '  They  oughter  say 
6  Suckers,  Attention,'  for  they  don't  even 
tell  whut  the  kid  looks  like.  I  wouldn't 
know  him  from  Adam  ef  I  wuz  ter  pass 
him  in  the  road." 

"But  they  do  tell  what  he  looks  like!" 
exclaimed  the  reader.  "  Here  it  all  is :  blue 
eyes,  golden  hair,  fair  skin,  rosy  cheeks " 

"Cutest  leetle  trick!"  exclaimed  old 
Clenk,  with  a  reminiscent  smile  at  the  image 
thus  conjured  up. 

The  words  passed  unnoticed  save  by 
222 


THE    ORDEAL 


Drann  and  Holvey.  They  exchanged  one 
glance  of  consternation,  and  the  fancied  se 
curity  in  which  they  had  dwelt,  as  fragile 
as  a  crystal  sphere,  was  shattered  in  an  in 
stant.  The  old  man  was  broken  by  his  ill 
ness,  his  recent  hardships.  He  was  verging 
on  his  dotage.  His  senile  folly  might  well 
cost  them  their  lives  or  liberty. 

Indeed,  as  the  description  progressed,  de 
tailing  the  child's  attire  even  to  his  red  shoes, 
the  old  fellow's  fingers  were  toying  fatu 
ously  with  one  of  them  in  his  deep  coat 
pocket  among  the  loose  tobacco  that  fed  his 
pipe.  "  That  don't  half  ekal  Mm"  he  broke 
out  suddenly.  "  Never  war  sech  another 
delightsome  leetle  creeter." 

A  moment  of  stunned  amazement  super 
vened  among  the  group. 

"  Why,  say,  old  Noah,  did  you  ever  see 
that  kid?  "  at  length  demanded  the  reader, 
with  a  keen  look  of  suspicion. 

223 


THE    ORDEAL 


It  was  the  inimical  expression,  rather 
than  a  definite  consciousness  of  self-be 
trayal,  that  sent  the  old  man's  drifting  mind 
back  to  its  moorings.  "  Jes'  listenin'  ter  that 
beautiful  readin',"  he  grinned,  his  long  yel 
low  tobacco-stained  teeth  all  bare  in  a  facial 
contortion  that  essayed  a  smile,  his  distended 
lips  almost  failing  of  articulation.  "  Them 
was  fine  clothes  sure  on  that  lovely  child." 

The  flamboyant  advertisements  had  often 
before  been  read  aloud  in  the  construction 
camp,  and  the  matter  might  have  passed 
as  the  half-fevered  babblings  of  a  sick  old 
man,  but  for  that  look  of  stultified  com 
ment,  of  anguished  foreboding,  that  was  in 
terchanged  between  the  two  accomplices. 
Only  one  man,  however,  had  the  keen  obser 
vation  to  catch  that  fleeting  signal,  and  the 
enterprise  to  seek  to  interpret  it. 

The  next  day,  when  Clenk  did  not  reap 
pear,  this  man  quietly  slipped  to  the  shack 

224 


THE    ORDEAL 


where  the  three  lived  together.  There  was  a 
padlock  knocking  in  the  wind  on  the  flimsy 
door.  This  said  as  plain  as  speech  that  there 
was  no  one  within.  Ordinarily  this  would 
have  precluded  all  question,  all  entrance.  But 
the  intruder  was  seeking  a  pot  of  gold,  and 
informed  by  a  strong  suspicion.  With  one 
effort  of  his  brawny  hands,  he  pulled  loose 
from  the  top  first  the  strap  of  one  of  the 
broad  upright  boards  that  formed  the  walls, 
then  the  board  itself.  He  turned  sideways 
and  slipped  his  bulk  through  the  aperture, 
the  board  swinging  elastically  back  into  place. 
There  was  a  stove  in  the  squalid  little 
apartment,  instead  of  the  open  fires  common 
to  the  region.  It  was  masked  in  a  dusky 
twilight,  but  as  his  eyes  became  accustomed 
to  the  obscurity  and  the  disorder,  his  suspi 
cion  exhaled,  and  a  heavy  sense  of  disap 
pointment  clogged  his  activities  like  a  ball 
and  chain. 

15  225 


THE    ORDEAL 


There  in  his  bunk  lay  Clenk,  his  eyes  shin 
ing  with  the  light  of  fever,  his  illness  af 
fording  an  obvious  explanation  of  the  pre 
caution  of  his  comrades  in  locking  the  door 
while  they  were  away  at  work,  at  the  limits 
of  the  construction  line,  to  protect  him  from 
molestation  by  man  or  beast. 

Nevertheless,  the  intruder  made  an  effort 
to  hold  his  theory  together.  He  approached 
the  bunk,  and  with  an  insidious  craft  sought 
to  draw  the  old  man  out.  But  Clenk  was 
now  on  his  guard.  His  comrades  had  bit 
terly  upbraided  him  with  his  self-betrayal, 
that  indeed  threatened  the  safety  of  all.  In 
fact,  their  courage  was  so  reduced  by  the  un 
toward  episode  that  he  more  than  suspected 
they  intended  to  flee  the  region,  and  he  wTas 
disposed  to  give  the  fact  that  he  was  left 
cooped  up  here  under  lock  and  key  no  such 
humane  interpretation  as  the  intruder  had 
placed  upon  it.  They  had  left  him  to  starve, 

226 


THE    ORDEAL 


if  not  discovered,  while  they  sought  to  com 
pass  a  safe  distance.  At  all  events,  he  was 
so  broken  in  mind  and  body  that  his  story 
was  more  than  likely  to  be  discredited,  un 
less  their  own  clumsy  denials  and  guilty 
faces  were  in  evidence  to  confirm  its  truth. 

Now  his  garrulity  had  vanished ;  he  licked 
his  thin  lips  ever  and  anon,  and  looked 
up  over  the  folds  of  the  red  blanket  drawn 
to  the  chin  with  a  bright,  inscrutable  eye 
and  said  nothing.  His  weakness  was  so 
great  that  the  policy  of  lying  silent  and  su 
pine,  rather  than  exert  his  failing  powers, 
was  commended  by  his  inclination  as  well  as 
his  prudence. 

Though  it  was  in  vain  that  the  spy  plied 
him  with  question  and  suggestion,  one 
phrase  was  like  a  galvanic  current  to  this 
inert  atrophy  of  muscle  and  mind.  "  Look 
here,  old  man,"  the  intruder  said  at  length, 
baffled  and  in  despair,  "  you  mark  my 

227 


THE    ORDEAL 


words!  "  The  brawny  form  had  come  close 
in  the  shadow  and  towered  over  the  recum 
bent  and  helpless  creature,  speaking  im 
pressively  through  his  set  teeth.  "  You  mark 
my  words:  your  pals  are  going  to  do  you." 

A  quiver  of  patent  apprehension  ran  over 
the  dimly  descried  face,  and  under  the  blan 
ket  the  limbs  writhed  feebly;  but  Clenk's 
resolution  held  firm,  and  with  a  curse,  balked 
and  lowering,  the  man  stepped  out  at  the 
place  where  he  had  effected  his  entrance  at 
the  moment  when  his  scheme  might  have 
borne  fruit. 

For  old  Clenk  had  struggled  up  in  bed. 
This  threat  was  true.  He  had  vaguely  sus 
pected  the  fact,  but  in  the  words  of  another 
his  fear  had  an  added  urgency.  He  had  be 
trayed  his  accomplices,  he  had  betrayed  him 
self.  Doubtless  it  was  a  race  between  them 
as  to  who  'could  soonest  seize  the  opportu 
nity  to  turn  State's  evidence. 

228 


THE    ORDEAL 


And  why  should  he  fear  the  law  more 
than  another?  As  matters  stood,  he  would 
be  left  to  bear  the  brunt  of  its  vengeance, 
while  the  active  perpetrator  of  the  deed  es 
caped,  and  the  accessories  sought  shelter  be 
neath  the  segis  of  the  law  itself. 

He  was  not  long  in  reasoning  it  out.  The 
strength  of  his  resolution  imparted  a  ficti 
tious  vigor  to  his  muscles.  While  unaided 
he  could  never  have  stirred  the  heavy  board, 
his  efforts  made  it  give,  loosened  as  it  had 
already  been,  so  that  his  thin,  wiry  body 
could  slip  between  its  edge  and  the  rest  of 
the  wall.  He  had  one  moment  of  intense 
terror  lest  it  slip  elastically  back  and  hold 
him  pinioned  there,  but  a  convulsive  struggle 
sufficed,  and  he  stepped  out,  exhausted  and 
trembling,  into  the  gathering  dusk,  a  lower 
ing  assemblage  of  darkling  mountains,  and 
at  a  little  distance  the  shacks  of  the  construc 
tion  gang.  The  doors  were  aflare  with  flick- 


THE    ORDEAL 


ering  lights  from  within,  and  the  unctuous 
smell  of  frying  pork  was  on  the  air.  It  was 
well  for  his  enterprise  that  at  the  critical  mo 
ment  the  camp  was  discussing  its  well- 
earned  supper  and  had  scant  attention  to 
bestow  on  other  interests. 

An  hour  later  the  men  on  a  hand-car, 
whizzing  down  the  portion  of  the  track  that 
was  sufficiently  complete  for  this  mode  of 
progression,  gave  little  heed  that  a  work 
man  from  the  camp  was  stealing  a  ride, 
sitting  in  a  huddled  clump,  his  feet  dan 
gling.  Whether  discharged  or  in  the  exe 
cution  of  some  commission  for  the  construc 
tion  boss,  they  did  not  even  canvass.  Far 
too  early  it  was  for  the  question  of  rates  or 
passes  to  vex  the  matter  of  transportation. 
They  did  not  even  mark  when  he  dropped 
off,  for  the  hand-car  ran  into  the  yards  at 
the  terminus,  carrying  only  its  own  crew. 

Clenk  was  equally  fortunate  in  creeping 

230 


THE    ORDEAL 


into  an  empty  freight  here  unobserved,  and 
when  it  was  uncoupled  and  the  engine 
swept  into  the  round-house  in  the  city  of 
Glaston,  it  was  verging  again  toward  sun 
set,  and  he  was  hundreds  of  miles  from  his 
starting-point. 

Some  monitions  of  craft  were  vaguely 
astir  in  his  dull  old  brain.  He  had  resolved 
to  throw  himself  on  the  mercy  of  the  mother, 
ere  he  trusted  himself  to  the  clutches  of  the 
law.  He  winced  from  the  mere  thought  of 
those  sharp  claws  of  justice,  but  he  promised 
himself  that  he  would  be  swift.  He  could 
not  say  how  Holvey  and  Drann  might  se 
cure  precedence  of  him.  They  had  gotten 
the  start,  and  they  might  hold  it.  But  if  he 
should  tell  the  mother  where  they  had  left 
the  child,  he  would  surely  have  a  friend  at 
court.  When  he  was  in  the  street  he  walked 
without  hesitation  up  to  the  first  responsible- 
looking  man  he  met,  and,  showing  him  the 

231 


THE    ORDEAL 


advertisement  in  the  newspaper,  boldly 
asked  to  be  directed  to  the  house  of  that 
lady. 

So  dull  he  was,  so  unaccustomed  to  blocks 
and  turnings  and  city  squares,  that  after  an 
interval  of  futile  explanation  the  stranger 
turned  out  of  his  way  and  walked  a  short 
distance  with  him.  All  the  world  had  heard 
of  the  tragedy  and  the  mysterious  disappear 
ance  of  the  child,  and,  although  suspecting 
a  fake,  even  a  casual  stranger  would  not 
disregard  a  chance  of  aid. 

It  was  well  that  the  distance  was  not 
great,  for  even  his  excitement  was  hardly 
adequate  to  sustain  Clenk's  failing  phy 
sique.  When  the  old  mountaineer  paused 
on  the  concrete  sidewalk  to  which  the  spa 
cious  grounds  of  the  suburban  residence 
sloped,  he  looked  about  with  disfavor. 
"  Can't  see  the  house  fur  the  trees,"  he  mut 
tered,  for  the  great  oaks,  accounted  so  mag- 

232 


THE    ORDEAL 


nificent  an  appurtenance  in  Glaston,  were 
to  him  the  commonest  incident  of  entour 
age,  and  a  bare  door-yard,  peeled  of  grass, 
a  far  more  significant  token  of  sophistica 
tion.  As  he  approached,  however,  the 
stately  mansion  presently  appeared,  situated 
on  a  considerable  eminence,  and  with  long 
flights  of  stone  steps  from  a  portico,  en 
riched  with  Corinthian  columns,  and  from 
two  successive  terraces  at  some  little  dis 
tance  in  front.  Here  were  tall  stone  vases 
on  either  hand,  and  beside  one  of  these  at 
the  lower  terrace  two  ladies  had  paused, 
waiting,  descrying  his  approach.  One  was 
gowned  in  deep  black,  sad  of  aspect,  though 
serene,  and  very  beautiful.  The  other  wore 
a  dress  all  of  sheer  white  embroideries,  with 
knots  of  brocaded  lilac  ribbon,  festival  of 
intimation,  but  her  face  was  thin,  wan, 
worn,  tortured  out  of  al]  semblance  of  calm 
or  cheer.  He  came  falteringly  toward  them, 

233,- 


THE    ORDEAL 


and  stood  for  a  moment  uncertain.  Then — 
for  the  scope  of  his  cultivation  did  not  in 
clude  the  civility  of  lifting  his  hat — he  said, 
"  Which  of  ye  two  wimin  hev  los'  a  child?  " 
His  voice  was  quavering,  even  sympathetic, 
and  very  gentle  as  he  looked  at  them. 

"  I  have  lost  my  little  son!  "  cried  Lillian 
in  a  keen,  strained  tone,  agonized  anew  by 
the  mere  mention  of  the  catastrophe.  "  Have 
you  any  information  about  him  ?  I  am  ready 
to  pay  for  it."  She  had  been  warned  a  hun 
dred  times  that  eagerness  in  proffering 
money,  in  making  the  reward  so  obviously 
sure,  was  not  conducive  to  accelerating  the 
disclosure,  bringing  into  play  the  innate 
perversity  of  human  nature,  and  a  desire  to 
trade  on  the  situation  and  increase  the  gains ; 
yet  try  as  she  might,  she  could  not  refrain 
from  invoking  always  the  cogent  aid  of 
gold. 

"  I  ain't  so  particular  'bout  the  money, 

234 


THE    ORDEAL 


lady.  I  got  su'thin'  on  my  mind.  I  be  bent 
on  makin'  it  square  with  the  law.  An'  then, 
too,  that  leetle  Archie  air  a  mighty  game 
some  leetle  trick."  He  laughed  slightly  as 
with  a  pleasant  fleeting  reminiscence. 
"  Come  mighty  nigh  dyin',  though — skeered 
me,  fur  a  fack.  Powerful  tight  squeak  he 
had!" 

All  at  once  his  eyes,  glancing  over  his 
shoulder,  lighted  on  Bayne,  who  had  just 
come  to  call  on  the  ladies  and  now  stood  at 
the  bottom  of  the  flight  of  the  terrace 
steps.  Clenk  drew  back  with  an  obvious 
shock.  "Why,  look-a-hyar,  you  ain't  Mr. 
Briscoe!"  he  exclaimed  insistently,  as  with 
a  desire  to  reassure  himself.  His  eyes  large, 
light,  distended,  were  starting  out  of  his 
head.  His  jaw  quivered  violently.  The 
grimy,  claw-like  hand  he  extended  shook  as 
with  a  palsy. 

When  together,  Briscoe  and  Bayne  had 
scant  facial  resemblance;  but  apart,  that 

235 


THE    ORDEAL 


stamp  of  consanguinity  might  easily  recall 
for  each  the  face  of  the  other.  Bayne,  with 
his  wonted  subtlety  of  divination,  replied  at 
once,  "  No,  but  Mr.  Briscoe  was  my  cousin." 

"  Oh,  ho — oh,  ho — I  see,"  the  old  man 
said,  tractable  and  easily  convinced.  "  I 
know — Lawd!  I  got  reason  ter  know  that 
Briscoe's  dead.  I  war  afeared  o'  seein' 
su'thin'  oncommon — his  harnt,  or  some  sech. 
The  idee  shuk  me  powerful.  I  hev  hed  a 
fever  lately.  Lemme  sit  down — I — I — can't 
stand  up.  I  been  hevin'  a  misery  lately  in 
my  breast-bone — oh!" — he  waved  his  hand 
in  the  air  with  a  pathetic,  grasping  gesture — 
"  me  breath  is  gone — me  breath,  me 
breath " 

He  sank  down  on  an  iron  bench  at  one 
side  on  the  velvety  turf  and  feebly  gasped. 

"I'll  get  some  brandy,"  Gladys  said  in  a 
low  tone  to  Lillian,  and  sped  swiftly  up  the 
steps  toward  the  house. 

Suddenly  Clenk  partially  lifted  himself 

236 


THE    ORDEAL 


and  dived  into  one  of  the  pockets  of  his 
loose  coat.  He  brought  up  a  little  red  shoe, 
all  tarnished  and  tobacco-stained,  and  held 
it  out  to  Lillian  with  a  faint  and  flickering 
smile  of  bestowal,  certain  of  gratitude  as 
well  as  recognition.  "  Does  you-uns  know 
that  leetle  foot?" 

Lillian  swayed  for  a  moment  as  if  she 
might  fall.  Then,  with  a  piercing  shriek, 
she  darted  forward  and  seized  it  from  his 
shaking  grasp.  She  held  it  up  to  the  light, 
and  as  Gladys  returned,  herself  bearing  the 
tray  with  the  glass  and  decanter,  Lillian 
convulsively  clutched  her  arm  and,  speech 
less  and  trembling,  pointed  to  the  name  in 
tarnished  gilt  on  the  inside  of  the  sole — her 
own  shoemaker,  who  had  constructed  the 
delicate  little  hand-sewed  slipper! 

"  Where  is  he  now — where  is  this  child?  " 
Bayne  demanded  precipitately,  his  own 
breath  short,  his  pulses  beating  in  his  tem 
ples  till  the  veins  seemed  near  bursting. 

237 


THE    ORDEAL 


"  I  can't  rightly  say  now"  the  old  man 
drawled ;  "  but — but  I  kin  tell  you  where 
we-uns  lef '  him.  'T  war  a  awful  bis'ness, 
that  crackin'  off  Briscoe — that  war  n't  in 
the  plan  at  all.  We-uns  war  after  the  rev- 
enuer.  What  right  had  he  ter  bust  our  still 
an'  break  up  our  wu'm  and  pour  our  mash 
an'  singlings  out  on  the  ground?  Ain't  it 
our'n?  Ain't  the  corn  an'  apples  an'  peaches 
our'n?  Didn't  we  grow  'em? — an'  what 
right  hev  the  gover'ment  ter  say  we  kin  eat 
'em,  but  can't  bile  'em — eh?  They  b'long 
ter  we-uns — an'  gosh!  the  gover'ment  can't 
hender!  But  we  never  meant  no  harm  ter 
Briscoe.  Lawd !  Lawd !  that  war  n't  in  the 
plan  at  all.  But  the  child  viewed  it,  an', 
by  gosh!  I  b'lieve  that  leetle  creetur  could 
hev  told  the  whole  tale  ez  straight  as  a  string 
— same  ez  ef  he  war  twenty-five  year  old. 
That  deedie  of  a  baby-child  talked  sense — 
horse-sense — he  did,  fur  a  f ack !  " 

238 


THE    ORDEAL 


"  Where — where "  Lillian  was  using 

every  power  of  her  being  to  restrain  the 
screams  of  wild  excitement,  to  sustain  the 
suspense. 

"Where  did  you  last  see  him?"  asked 
Bayne.  He  had  grown  deadly  white,  and 
the  old  man,  lifting  his  face,  gazed  vaguely 
from  one  to  the  other.  Their  intense  but 
controlled  excitement  seemed  subtly  im 
parted  to  his  nerves.  The  details  of  the 
tragedy  had  become  hackneyed  in  his  own 
consciousness,  but  their  significance,  their 
surfeit  of  horror,  revived  on  witnessing  their 
effect  on  others. 

"  Look-a-hyar,  you  two  an'  this  woman 
will  stan'  up  fur  me  when  I  gin  myself  up 
fur  State's  evidence,  ef  I  put  ye  on  the  track 
fur  findin'  Bubby?  He's  thar  all  right  yit, 
I'll  be  bound — well  an'  thrivin,  I  reckon. 
He  hev  got  backbone,  tough  ez  a  pine  knot." 

"  Yes,  yes,  indeed;  we  pledge  ourselves  to 

239 


THE    ORDEAL 


sustain  you,"  cried  Lillian.  Bayne  was  put 
ting  the  glass  of  brandy  into  the  grimy, 
shaking  paw,  mindful  of  the  old  man's  shat 
tered  composure. 

"  It  be  a  mighty  risk  I  be  a-runnin' " — 
the  old,  seamed  face  was  of  a  deadly  pallor 
and  was  beginning  to  glister  with  a  cold 
sweat.  "  I  reckon  I  ought  n't  ter  tell 
nuthin'  exceptin'  ter  the  officers,  but — but — 
I  'lowed  leetle  Archie's  mother  would  help 
me  some  again  them  bloodhounds  o'  the 
law." 

"I'll  move  heaven  and  earth  to  aid  you!  " 
cried  Lillian. 

"See  here,  I  can  promise  that  you  shall 
be  held  harmless,  for  I  am  the  prosecutor," 
Gladys  struck  suddenly  into  the  conversa 
tion,  pale  but  calm,  every  fibre  held  to  a 
rigorous  self-control.  "  I  am  Mr.  Briscoe's 
wife,  his  widow.  Now  tell  me,  where  did 
you  last  see  that  child?  " 

240 


THE    ORDEAL 


"  Wh— wh— wh— whut?  You  the  wid- 
der?  "  Clenk's  eyes  were  starting  from  their 
sockets  as  he  gazed  up  at  her  from  his 
crouching  posture  on  the  bench,  his  head 
sunk  between  his  shoulders,  his  hand  with 
the  untasted  glass  in  it  trembling  violently. 

"  An'  ye  say  that  ye  too  will  stand  by 
me?  Then  lemme  tell  it— lemme  tell  it  now. 
'T  was — what  d'  ye  call  that  place? — I  aint 
familiar  with  them  parts.  Wait" — as 
Bay ne  exclaimed  inarticulately — "  lemme 
think  a  minit."  He  dropped  his  head  on  one 
of  his  hands,  his  arm,  supported  by  the  back 
of  the  bench,  upholding  it.  His  slouched 
hat  had  fallen  off  on  the  stone  pavement,  and 
his  shock  of  gray  hair  moved  in  the  soft 
breeze. 

The  moment's  interval  in  the  anguish  of 
suspense  seemed  interminable  to  the  group. 
"  Drink  a  little  brandy,"  Bayne  counselled, 
hoping  to  stimulate  his  powers. 

16  241 


THE    ORDEAL 


He  evidently  heard,  and  sought  to  obey. 
The  hand  holding  the  untasted  liquor  quiv 
ered,  the  glass  swayed,  fell  from  his  nerve 
less  grasp,  and  shivered  to  fragments  on  the 
stone  pavement. 

Bayne  sprang  to  his  side  and  lifted  his 
head.  Ah,  a  drear  and  ghastly  face  it  was, 
turned  up  to  the  gorgeous  sunset,  the  gen 
tle  ambient  air,  the  happy,  fleeting  shadows 
of  the  homing  birds. 

"  Has  he  fainted?  "  asked  Lillian. 

1  The  man  is  dead!  "  Bayne  cried  with  a 
poignant  intonation.  "  He  is  dead!  He  is 
dead!" 

For  while  they  had  waited  for  the  word 
that  had  eluded  him  he  had  gone  out  into 
the  great  wordless  unknown.  His  failing 
strength  had  thwarted  his  will.  His  spirit 
had  given  him  the  slip. 


242 


XIII, 

EVERY  appliance  of  resuscitation  known 
to  science  was  brought  into  use,  but  in  vain. 
No  scrap  of  paper,  no  clue  of  identification, 
was  found  upon  the  body.  The  three,  bound 
together  in  such  close  ties  of  sympathy,  were 
stricken  as  with  a  new  and  appalling  afflic 
tion.  The  burden  was  all  the  heavier  for 
that  momentary  lightening  of  a  treacherous 
hope.  For  a  time  Bayne  could  not  recon 
cile  himself  to  this  new  disaster.  So  over 
whelming  indeed,  so  obvious,  was  its  effect 
that  Lillian,  ever  with  her  covetous  appro 
priation  of  every  faculty,  her  grasping  claim 
on  every  identity  in  this  sacred  cause,  feared 
that  despair  had  at  last  overtaken  him,  and 
that  he  would  succumb  and  give  over  defi 
nitely  the  search.  The  idea  roused  her  to  a 
sort  of  galvanic  energy  in  promoting  the 

243 


THE    ORDEAL 


project,  and  she  would  continually  formu 
late  fantastic  plans  and  suggest  to  him  ten 
uous  theories  with  feverish  volubility,  only 
to  have  him  thrust  them  aside  with  a  lack 
lustre  indifference  that  their  futility  merited. 

"  He  is  discouraged,  Gladys;  he  is  at  the 
end  of  his  resources,"  she  said  aside  to  her 
friend.  "  He  can  try  no  more." 

"How  can  yon  believe  that?"  cried 
Gladys. 

Even  in  this  crisis  Lillian  noted  anew 
with  a  wounded  amazement  the  significant 
smile  on  the  fair  face  of  her  friend,  the  proud 
pose  of  her  head.  Could  she  arrogate  such 
triumphant  confidence  in  the  temper  and  na 
ture  of  a  man  who  did  not  love  her? — whose 
heart  and  mind  were  not  trusted  to  her 
keeping?  That  doubt  assailed  Lillian  anew 
in  Bayne's  absence,  and  in  the  scope  for 
dreary  meditation  that  the  eventless  days  af 
forded  it  developed  a  fang  that  added  its 

244 


THE    ORDEAL 


cruelties  to  a  grief  which  she  had  imagined 
could  be  supplemented  by  no  other  sorrow. 

It  was  merely  sympathy  that  animated 
him  in  her  behalf,  she  felt  sure;  it  was  pity 
for  her  helplessness  when  none  other  would 
abet  the  hopeless  effort  to  recover  the  child. 
His  conviction  that  Archie  still  lived  con 
strained  him  by  the  dictates  of  humanity  to 
seek  his  rescue.  He  wras  doubtless  moved, 
too,  by  the  great  generosity  of  his  heart,  his 
magnanimity;  but  not  by  love — never  by 
love!  How  could  it  be,  indeed,  in  the  face 
of  all  that  had  come  and  gone,  and  of  the 
constant  contrast,  mind,  body,  and  soul,  with 
the  perfect,  the  peerless  Gladys ! 

In  this,  the  dreariest  of  his  absences,  sel 
dom  a  word  came  to  the  two  women  waiting 
alternately  in  agonized  expectation  or  dull 
despair.  For  Bayne  was  much  of  the  time 
beyond  the  reach  of  postal  and  telegraphic 
facilities.  In  the  endeavor  to  discover  some 

245 


THE    ORDEAL 


clue  to  identify  that  strange  visitant  of  the 
smiling  spring  sunset,  and  thus  reach  other 
participants  in  the  crime  of  the  murder  and 
the  abduction,  Bayne  had  the  body  con 
veyed  to  the  Great  Smoky  Range,  within 
the  vicinity  of  the  Briscoe  bungalow,  dis 
cerning  from  the  speech  of  the  man,  as  well 
as  from  his  familiarity  with  the  deed,  that 
he  was  a  native  mountaineer.  Lillian  had 
desired  to  bestow  upon  him,  in  return  for  his 
intention  of  aid  at  the  last,  a  decent  burial, 
but  the  interpretation  of  the  metropolitan 
undertaker  of  this  commission  was  so  far 
in  excess  of  the  habit  of  the  rustic  region 
that  men  who  had  known  old  Clenk  all  their 
lives  did  not  recognize  him  as  he  lay  in  his 
coffin,  clean,  bathed,  shaven,  clad  in  a  suit 
of  respectable  black  and  with  all  the  dignity 
of  immaculate  linen,  and  they  swore  that 
they  had  never  before  seen  him.  The  alert 
ness  of  Copenny's  guilty  conscience  sharp- 

246 


THE    ORDEAL 


ened  his  faculties.  His  keen  eyes  penetrated 
the  disguise  of  this  reputable  aspect  at  once, 
though  he  sedulously  kept  his  own  counsel. 
He  heard  the  details  of  the  death  in  the 
rounds  of  the  mountain  gossip,  and  divined 
what  Clenk's  errand  had  been.  He  deemed 
that  the  effort  to  turn  State's  evidence  had 
met  its  condign  punishment,  and  he  felt  more 
assured  and  secure  now  that  it  had  been  at 
tempted  and  had  failed. 

Bayne,  however,  had  scant  time  to  push 
his  investigations  here,  where  indeed  the 
ground  had  been  previously  so  thoroughly 
searched,  for  he  was  summoned  away  by 
another  lure  of  a  clue  far  to  the  northeast. 
His  recent  bitter  disappointment,  on  the 
verge  of  a  discovery  of  importance,  per 
haps  enabled  him  better  to  bear  in  this  in 
stance  the  result  of  a  fruitless  quest,  for  he 
had  definitely  ceased  to  hope.  He  had  be 
gun  to  believe  the  child  was  dead.  Clenk's 

247 


THE    ORDEAL 


words  implied  no  present  knowledge  of  his 
seclusion.  The  allusion  to  a  severe  illness 
suggested  possibilities  of  relapse,  of  a  weak 
ening  of  the  constitution  as  much  from  lack 
of  proper  attention  and  nourishment  as  from 
disease. 

On  the  lonely  railway  journey  from  the 
scene  of  this  latest  disappointment,  Bayne 
was  dismayed  to  note  from  time  to  time  how 
blank  were  the  hours  before  him,  how  his 
invention  had  flagged!  What  to  do  next, 
what  tortuous  path  to  try,  he  did  not  know. 
Now  and  again  he  sought  to  spur  up  his 
jaded  faculties  to  perceive  in  the  intricate 
circumstances  of  all  his  futile  plans  some 
fibre  of  a  thread,  untried  hitherto,  that  might 
serve  to  unravel  all  this  web  of  mystery. 
But  no !  He  seemed  at  the  end.  His  mind 
was  dull,  stagnant ;  his  thoughts  were  heavy ; 
he  was  oblivious  of  the  surroundings.  The 
incidents  of  the  passing  moment  scarcely 

248 


THE    ORDEAL 


impinged  upon  his  consciousness.  He  did 
not  share  the  vexation  of  his  fellow-passen 
gers  when  a  wreck  of  freight  cars  on  the 
track  bade  fair  to  delay  the  train  some  hours, 
awaiting  the  clearance  of  the  obstructions. 
It  hardly  mattered  where  he  spent  the  time. 
He  had  lost  all  interests,  all  hold  on  other 
phases  of  life,  and  this  that  he  had  made 
paramount,  essential,  baffled  and  deluded 
and  denied  him,  and  in  its  elusiveness  it 
seemed  now  to  have  worn  him  quite  out. 

Then  once  more  he  sought  to  goad  his 
drooping  spirits,  to  rouse  himself  to  a  keener 
efficiency.  He  would  not  give  up  the  em 
prise,  he  declared  again,  he  would  not  be 
conquered  save  by  time  itself.  It  was  rather 
an  instinct,  in  pursuance  of  this  revival  of 
his  resolution,  to  seek  to  rid  himself  of  his 
own  thoughts,  the  constant  canvass  of  his 
despair;  this  had  necessarily  a  resilient  ef 
fect,  benumbing  to  the  possibilities  of  new 

249 


THE    ORDEAL 


inspiration.  He  sought  to  freshen  his  facul 
ties,  to  find  some  diversion  in  the  passing 
moment  that  might  react  favorably  on  the 
plan  nearest  his  heart.  He  forced  himself 
to  listen,  at  first  in  dull  preoccupation,  to 
the  talk  of  a  group  in  the  smoker ;  it  glanced 
from  one  subject  to  another — the  surround 
ings,  the  soil,  the  timber,  the  mining  inter 
ests — and  presently  concentrated  on  a 
quaint  corner  of  the  region,  near  the  scene 
of  the  stoppage,  the  Qualla  Boundary.  This 
was  the  reservation  of  a  portion  of  the  tribe 
of  Cherokee  Indians,  the  Eastern  Band,  who 
nearly  a  century  earlier  had  evaded,  in  the 
dense  fastnesses  of  these  ranges,  removal 
with  their  brethren  to  the  west,  and  had  fi 
nally  succeeded  in  buying  this  mountainous 
tract  of  fifty  thousand  acres. 

As  Bayne  looked  out  of  the  window,  urg 
ing  his  mind  to  appraise  the  human  interest 
of  the  entourage,  to  apprehend  its  signifi- 

250 


THE    ORDEAL 


cance,  he  bethought  himself  of  a  certain  old 
Cherokee  phrase  that  used  to  baffle  him  in 
his  philological  studies.  He  remembered 
in  a  sort  of  dreary  wonder  that  he  had  once 
felt  enough  curiosity  concerning  this  ancient 
locution  to  maintain  a  correspondence  with 
the  Ethnological  Bureau  of  the  Smithsonian 
Institution  as  to  its  precise  signification — 
and  now  he  could  scarcely  make  shift  to  rec 
ollect  it. 

He  had  then  been  hard  on  the  track  of 
the  vanishing  past;  his  wish  was  to  verify, 
solely  for  the  sake  of  scholastic  accuracy, 
these  words  of  the  ancient  Cherokee  tongue, 
the  Ayrate  dialect,  which  was  formerly  the 
language  of  their  lowland  settlements  in  this 
region,  but  which,  since  the  exodus  of  the 
majority  of  these  Indians  to  the  west  and 
the  fusion  of  the  lingering  remnant  of  their 
upper  and  lower  towns  into  this  tribal  reser 
vation  east  of  the  Great  Smoky  Mountains, 

251 


THE    ORDEAL 


has  become  lost,  merged  with  the  Ottare 
(Atali)  dialect,  once  distinctively  the  speech 
of  their  highland  villages  only,  but  now  prac 
tically  modern  Cherokee. 

As  Bayne  recalled  the  circumstances,  he 
noted  one  of  the  Qualla  Indians  loitering 
about  the  scene  of  the  wreck.  He  put  a 
question  to  him  from  out  the  window  of  the 
coach,  and  discovered  that  he  spoke  Eng 
lish  with  some  facility.  The  old  habit  re 
asserted  itself  with  inherent  energy,  and 
presently  Bayne  was  moved  to  leave  the 
car  and  sit  on  a  pile  of  wood  near  the  track, 
where,  with  his  new  acquaintance,  he  floun 
dered  over  verbal  perversions  of  modern 
changes  and  lost  significations  of  the  lan 
guage  and  the  contortions  of  Anglicized 
idioms,  till  at  length  he  remarked  that  if  his 
interlocutor  would  act  as  interpreter  he 
should  like  to  converse  on  the  subject  of 
these  words  with  some  old  Cherokee  who 

252 


THE    ORDEAL 


had  never  learned  English  and  had  seldom 
heard  it  spoken. 

The  Qualla  Boundary  is  sufficiently  per 
meated  with  the  spirit  of  the  past  to  feel 
that  Time  is  the  intimate  possession  of  man. 
In  that  languid  environment  there  is  no 
frenzy  to  utilize  it  lest  it  fly  away.  No  man 
is  hurried  into  his  grave  within  the  reserva 
tion.  It  seemed  not  more  strange  to  the 
Indian  than  to  the  linguist  to  spend  an 
hour  or  so  in  meditating  on  a  queer  word 
that  has  lost  its  meaning  amidst  the  surges 
of  change.  The  tribesman,  lending  him 
self  readily  to  the  investigation,  suddenly 
bethought  himself  of  the  ancient  sibyl 
in  her  remote  cabin  on  the  steep  slant 
of  the  mountain,  among  the  oldest  and 
the  least  progressive  denizens  of  the  Qualla 
Boundary. 

Despite  her  arrogations  of  uncanny  fore 
knowledge  of  human  events,  despite  her 
mystic  lore  of  spells  and  charms,  she  had 

253 


THE    ORDEAL 


no  faint  presentiment  of  the  fact  when  Fate 
came  boldly  here  and  laid  a  hand  on  her 
door.  None  of  her  familiars  of  the  air,  of 
the  earth,  gave  her  warning.  Often  she 
thought  of  this  afterward  with  bitterness, 
with  upbraiding.  The  Mountain  Climber, 
At  all  Kuli  (the  ginseng),  must,  she  was 
sure,  have  known  of  this  inimical  ascent  of 
the  steeps,  but  he  only  burrowed  the  deeper, 
and  treacherously  made  no  sign.  As  to 
Agaluga  Hegwa.,  the  great  Whirlwind — she 
would  have  bidden  him  arise  quickly — 
ff  Ha-usinuli  datule-hu  gu! "  —but  to  what 
avail!  Doubtless  he  was  asleep  somewhere 
on  the  sunny  slopes.  The  Ancient  White 
Fire  was  covered  with  ash;  not  a  glimmer 
did  Higayuli  Tsunega  afford  her,  not  a 
flicker.  What  a  mockery  was  it  that  Kana- 
niski  Gigagc  should  pretend  to  weave  his 
web  so  fast,  so  fine,  about  the  child,  and  yet 
suffer  its  strong  meshes  to  be  burst  apart 
by  a  mere  word. 

254 


THE    ORDEAL 


It  was  not  the  obsolete  word  which  the 
visitor  sought,  for  as  he  sat  outside  her  door 
in  a  chair,  brought  from  within  the  cabin, 
while  she  crouched  on  the  threshold,  and  the 
interpreter  perched  on  the  stump  of  a  tree, 
an  interruption  occurred  that  flung  those 
enigmatic  syllables  back  on  the  mysterious 
past  forever.  "  Polly  Hopkins  "  in  her  poor 
and  ragged  calico  gown — for  the  pictu 
resque  Indian  garb  of  yore  is  now  but  a  tra 
dition  in  the  Qualla  Boundary — had  barely 
lifted  her  head  in  her  flapping  old  sunbon- 
net  that  scarcely  disguised  its  pose  of  sur 
prised  expectation,  when  a  sound  came  from 
the  interior  of  the  house  as  turbulent  as 
the  approach  of  a  troop  of  wild  horses,  and 
instantly  there  rushed  out  into  the  sunshine 
a  sturdy  blond  child  with  wide,  daring  blue 
eyes,  golden  hair,  muscular  bare  legs,  ar 
rayed  in  a  queer  little  frock  of  blue  ging 
ham,  and  no  further  garb  than  the  graces 
of  his  own  symmetry. 

255 


THE    ORDEAL 


For  a  moment  Bayne  was  like  a  man  in  a 
dream.  To  be  confronted  suddenly  with 
the  realization  of  all  his  hopes,  the  consum 
mation  of  all  his  struggles,  took  his  breath 
away.  He  had  not  been  sufficiently  ac 
quainted  with  the  boy  to  recognize  him  at 
once  in  this  different  attire,  and  with  the 
growth  and  vigor  of  nearly  a  year's  time, 
but  the  incongruity  of  his  fair  complexion, 
his  blond  hair,  in  this  entourage,  his  exotic 
aspect,  made  Bayne's  heart  leap  and  every 
nerve  tremble. 

Meeting  the  gaze  of  the  big,  unafraid  blue 
eyes,  he  asked  at  a  venture  in  English, 
"  And  what  is  your  name,  young  man?  " 

"  Archie  Royston,"  promptly  replied  the 
assured  and  lordly  youngster. 

"  Alchie  Loyston,"  mechanically  repeated 
the  old  sibyl.  Even  the  glance  of  her 
dimmed  eyes  was  a  caress  as  she  fondly 
turned  them  toward  the  child. 

256 


THE    ORDEAL 


Bayne  looked  as  if  he  might  faint.  A 
sharp  exclamation  was  scarcely  arrested  on 
his  lips.  He  flushed  deeply,  then  turned 
pale  with  excitement.  For  months  past, 
flaring  in  all  the  public  prints,  that  name  had 
been  advertised  with  every  entreaty  that 
humanity  must  regard,  with  every  lure  that 
might  excite  cupidity,  with  every  threat  that 
intimidation  could  compass.  And  here,  in 
this  sequestered  spot,  out  of  the  world,  as 
it  were,  among  the  remnant  of  an  Indian 
tribe,  of  a  peculiarly  secluded  life,  of  a 
strange  archaic  speech  and  an  isolated  in 
terest,  was  craftily  hidden  the  long-lost 
child.  Any  ill-considered  remark  might 
even  yet  jeopardize  his  restoration,  might 
result  in  his  withdrawal,  sequestered  anew 
and  inaccessible.  Julian  Bayne  became 
poignantly  mindful  of  precaution.  He  af 
fected  to  write  down  the  Cherokee  words 
as  the  interpreter  and  the  old  sibyl  dis- 

17  257 


THE    ORDEAL 


cussed  them,  but  his  pencil  trembled  so  that 
he  could  hardly  fashion  a  letter.  It  was  an 
interval  to  him  of  urgent  inward  debate. 
He  scarcely  dared  to  lose  sight  of  the  boy 
for  one  moment,  yet  he  more  than  feared  the 
slightest  demonstration  unsupported. 

He  was  in  terror  lest  he  find  the  situation 
changed  when  next  he  approached  the  for 
tune-teller's  cabin,  a  few  hours  later,  but 
the  little  blond  boy,  half  nude,  was  play 
ing  in  the  lush  grass  before  the  open  door. 
The  visitor  was  bolder  now,  being  accom 
panied  by  officers  of  the  law;  so  bold  in 
deed  that  he  was  able  to  pity  the  grief  of 
the  poor,  unintelligible  squaw,  volleying 
forth  a  world  of  words  of  which  every  tenth 
phrase  was  "  Alchie  Loyston."  By  what  ar 
gument  she  sought  to  detain  him,  what 
claims  she  preferred,  what  threats  she  voiced, 
can  never  be  known.  The  sheriff  of  the 
county  was  obdurate,  deaf  to  all  intents  and 

258 


THE    ORDEAL 


purposes.  He  shook  his  head  glumly  when 
it  was  suggested  that  she  might  remain  with 
the  child  until  his  mother  should  arrive  in 
response  to  the  telegram  already  sent. 
"  Might  poison  him — Indians  are  queer  cat 
tle  !  Mocking-birds  will  do  that  if  the  young 
ones  are  caged,  through  the  bars,  by  jing! " 
All  night  long,  like  some  faithful  dog,  she 
lay  on  the  floor  outside  the  door  of  the  room 
where  they  kept  the  child,  her  face  to  the 
threshold;  and  on  the  inner  side,  in  emula 
tion  and  imitation,  little  Archie  lay  on  the 
floor  and  echoed  her  every  groan  and  re 
sponded  to  her  lightest  whisper.  But  sleep 
was  good  to  him,  and  when  he  was  quite  un 
conscious  the  officers  took  him  up  and  placed 
him  on  a  bed,  while  they  awaited  in  great 
excitement  and  with  what  patience  they 
could  muster  the  response  to  the  telegram 
sent  by  Bayne,  couched  in  guarded  phrase 
and  held  well  within  the  facts: 

259 


THE    ORDEAL 


Child  here  in  the  Qualla  Boundary,  answering 
to  description  in  advertisements.  Says  his  name 
is  Archie  Royston.  Will  not  talk  further.  Well- 
treated.  Held  for  identification.  Awaiting 
advices. 


XIV. 

LILLIAN,  at  her  home  in  Glaston,  replied 
by  wire  in  that  tumult  of  emotion  which  each 
new  lure  was  potent  to  excite,  despite  the 
quicksands  of  baseless  hope  that  had 
whelmed  its  many  precursors.  Still,  she  ex 
pected  only  another  instance  of  deliberate 
and  brazen  fraud,  or  crafty  and  sleek  impos 
ture,  or,  worse  still,  honest  mistake.  The 
little  suit-case,  packed  with  all  that  the 
child  might  need,  which  had  journeyed 
through  so  many  vicissitudes,  so  many  thou 
sand  miles,  was  once  more  in  her  hand  as 
she  took  the  train.  She  never  forgot  that 
long  night  of  travel,  more  poignant  than  all 
her  anguished  journeyings  that  had  pre 
ceded  it.  Hurtling  through  the  air,  it 
seemed,  with  a  sense  of  fierce  speed,  the 
varied  clangors  of  the  train,  the  ringing  of 
the  rails,  the  frequent  hoarse  blasts  of  the 

261 


THE    ORDEAL 


whistle,  the  jangling  of  the  metallic  fix 
tures,  the  jarring  of  the  window-panes,  all 
were  keenly  differentiated  by  her  exacer 
bated  and  sensitive  perceptions,  and  each 
had  its  own  peculiar  irritation.  She  scarcely 
hoped  that  she  might  sleep,  and  it  was  only 
with  a  dutiful  sense  of  conserving  her 
strength  and  exerting  the  utmost  power  of 
her  will  in  the  endeavor,  that  she  lay  down 
when  her  berth  was  prepared.  But  the  se 
clusion,  the  darkness  within  the  curtains,  op 
pressed  her,  for  unwittingly  the  sights  and 
sounds  of  the  outer  world  had  an  influence 
to  make  her  quit  of  herself,  in  a  measure, 
and  to  focus  her  mind  on  some  trivial  object 
of  the  immediate  present.  She  drew  the 
blind  at  the  window  that  she  might  see  the 
scurrying  landscape — the  fields,  the  woods, 
the  river — and  now  and  again  the  sparkling 
lights  of  a  city,  looking  in  the  distance  as  if 
some  constellation,  richly  instarred  with 

262 


THE    ORDEAL 


golden  glamours,  had  fallen  and  lay  amidst 
the  purple  glooms  of  the  hills.  For  these 
elevations,  and  the  frequent  tunnels  as  the 
dawn  drew  near,  gave  token  that  the  moun 
tains  were  not  distant;  the  great  central 
basin  of  Tennessee  lay  far  to  the  west;  the 
engine  was  often  climbing  a  steep  grade,  as 
she  noted  from  the  sound.  She  was  going  to 
the  mountains,  to  the  mountains — to  meet 
what?  Sometimes  she  clasped  her  hands  and 
prayed  aloud  in  her  fear  and  heart-ache  and 
woe.  Then  she  blessed  the  many  clamors  of 
the  train  that  had  lacerated  her  tenderest  fi 
bres,  for  they  deadened  the  sound  of  her 
piteous  plaints,  and  she  was  a  proud  woman 
who  would  fain  that  none  heard  these  heart 
throbs  of  anguish  but  the  pitying  God 
Himself. 

She  must  have  slept  from  time  to  time, 
she  thought,  for  she  was  refreshed  and 
calmer  when  she  looked  forth  from  the  win- 

263 


THE    ORDEAL 


dow  and  beheld  the  resplendent  glories  of 
the  sunrise  amidst  the  Great  Smoky  Moun 
tains.  Vast,  far-stretching,  lofty,  as  im 
pressive  as  the  idea  of  eternity,  as  awesome 
as  the  menace  of  doom,  as  silent  as  the  un- 
imagined  purposes  of  creation,  they  lifted 
their  august  summits.  They  showed  a  deep, 
restful  verdure  in  the  foreground,  and  in 
more  distant  reaches  assumed  the  blandest 
enrichments  of  blue,  fading  and  fading  to 
mere  illusions  of  ranges,  and  finally  dream 
ing  away  to  the  misty  mirages  of  the  horizon. 
Lillian  was  ready,  erect,  tense,  waiting, 
for  miles  and  miles  before  her  destination 
could  be  reached,  when  suddenly  the  conduc 
tor  appeared,  his  face  alive  with  the  reali 
zation  of  sensation.  The  sheriff  of  the 
county  had  flagged  the  train.  He  had  a 
vehicle  in  waiting  for  Mrs.  Royston,  in  or 
der  that  she  might  curtail  the  distance,  as 
the  house  where  the  child  was  held  was  on 

264 


THE    ORDEAL 


the  verge  of  the  Qualla  Boundary,  and  the 
nearest  station  was  still  some  miles  further. 
There  were  few  words  spoken  on  that  hasty 
morning  drive  under  the  vast  growths  of 
the  dense  and  gigantic  valley  woods.  The 
freshness  of  the  forest  air,  the  redundant 
bloom  of  the  rhododendron,  the  glimpse  now 
and  again  of  a  scene  of  unparalleled  splen 
dor  of  mountain  range  and  the  graces  of 
the  Oconalufty  River,  swirling  and  dander- 
ing  through  the  sunshine  as  if  its  chant  in 
praise  of  June  must  have  a  meaning  trans 
lated  to  the  dullest  ear — all  was  for  Lillian 
as  if  it  had  not  been.  The  officers  had  cast 
but  one  glance  at  her  tense,  pale  face,  then 
turned  their  eyes  away.  The  suspense,  the 
pain,  the  torture  of  fear  could  end  only 
with  that  signal  moment  of  identification. 
Though  the  group  respected  her  sorrow  in 
silence,  they  themselves  experienced  the 
rigors  of  uncertainty  and  agitation  when 

265 


THE    ORDEAL 


the  log  cabin  came  into  view  amidst  the 
laurel,  and  every  man  of  them  trooped  in, 
following  her,  when  the  door  opened  and 
she  was  ushered  into  the  little,  low-ceiled 
room,  so  mean,  so  rough,  so  dingy  of  hue. 
But  for  her  it  held  the  wealth  of  the  uni 
verse,  the  joy  of  all  the  ages.  There  upon 
the  bed  lay  her  sleeping  child,  larger,  more 
vigorous,  than  she  remembered  him,  garbed 
in  a  quaint  little  garment  of  blue  gingham; 
his  blond  hair  clipped  close,  save  for  two 
fine  curls  on  top,  worn  indeed  like  a  scalp- 
lock  ;  his  long  lashes  on  his  cheeks,  rosy  ripe ; 
his  red  lips  slightly  parted;  his  fine,  firm- 
fleshed,  white  arms  tossed  above  his  head; 
his  long,  bare  legs  and  plump,  dimpled  feet 
stretched  out  at  their  full  length.  His  lips 
moved  with  an  unf  ormulated  murmur  as  her 
hysterical,  quavering  scream  of  joyful  rec 
ognition  rang  through  the  room.  Then  he 
opened  his  big  blue  eyes  to  find  his  mother 

266 


THE    ORDEAL 


bending  over  him.  He  did  not  recognize  her 
at  once,  and  after  a  peevish  sleepy  stare  he 
pushed  her  aside,  calling  plaintively  for  his 
precious  "  Polly  Hopkins." 

"  Oh,  bring  Polly  Hopkins,  whoever  she 
is!  "  cried  the  poor  rebuffed  mother.  "  And 
Heaven  bless  her  if  she  has  been  good  to 
him." 

But  when  the  dismal  old  squaw  blundered 
into  the  room,  more  blinded  by  grief  and 
tears  than  infirmity,  the  identity  of  his  visi 
tor  came  back  suddenly  to  him  with  the 
recollections  of  the  past,  and  in  all  the  tran 
scendent  joy  of  an  invaluable  possession  he 
called  out,  "Look,  mamma!  Ain't  her 
pretty?  So-o  pretty!  Me  s-sweet  Polly 
Hopkins ! "  And  sitting  up  in  bed,  he 
threw  his  arms  around  both  as  they  knelt  be 
side  it,  and  all  three  wept  locked  in  the  same 
tender  embrace. 

For  Lillian  would  not  hear  of  the  implica- 

267 


THE    ORDEAL 


tion  of  "  Polly  Hopkins  "  in  the  suspicion  of 
the  abduction,  and  the  rigors  of  the  law 
were  annulled  so  far  as  she  was  concerned. 
On  the  contrary,  Mrs.  Royston's  first  effort 
was  to  ameliorate  the  old  woman's  condition, 
to  take  her  at  once  to  their  home  to  be  cher 
ished  there  forever.  When  the  ancient  sibyl, 
affrighted  at  the  idea  of  removal  and  change, 
positively  refused,  the  mother  tenderly 
begged  that  she  would  tell  then  what  could 
be  done  for  her. 

"Polly  Hopkins"  asked  but  one  boon: 
the  boy.  That  was  the  limit  of  her  demand. 

Lillian  was  fain  to  solace  her  earnest  de 
sire  to  bestow  rich  reward  by  settling  a  com 
fortable  annuity  on  her  and  contracting  for 
a  snug,  stanch  house  to  be  built  here,  with 
every  appliance  that  could  add  to  her  com 
fort,  and  for  this  "  Polly  Hopkins  "  cared 
not  at  all;  for  her  poor  home  had  been  full 
of  joy  with  "  Alchie  Loyston." 

268 


THE    ORDEAL 


"  I  am  glad  I  can  afford  it,"  said  Lillian, 
with  a  gush  of  tears — how  long  it  had  been 
since  she  could  say  she  was  glad  of  aught! 
"  Though  she  will  not  come  with  me,  I  shall 
have  the  best  specialist  in  the  United  States 
to  leave  everything  and  come  here  and  take 
the  cataracts  from  her  eyes.  At  least,  she 
shall  have  her  sight  restored." 

But  alack,  it  was  not  "  Alchie  Loyston  " 
whom  she  should  see! 

As  for  Lillian,  she  would  scarcely  con 
sent  to  be  separated  from  the  child  for  one 
moment.  The  authorities  conceived  it  neces 
sary  to  take  his  statement  in  private — but 
allowed  her  to  stand  just  outside  the  door — 
before  his  mind  could  be  influenced  by  the 
comments  of  others  or  the  involuntary  as 
similation  of  their  views  with  his  knowledge 
of  the  facts,  for  there  was  still  a  large  re 
ward  for  any  information  leading  to  the  ap 
prehension  of  the  murderers  of  Edward 


THE    ORDEAL 


Briscoe.  Little  Archie  had  obviously  been 
a  witness  of  that  catastrophe  and  kidnapped 
to  prevent  his  revealing  the  identity  of  its 
perpetrators.  Indeed,  this  was  a  well- 
founded  fear,  for  he  was  very  glib  with  the 
details  of  that  momentous  occasion,  and  he 
had  no  sooner  mentioned  the  name  of  Phin- 
eas  Copenny,  or  "  Phinny  'Penny,"  in  his 
infantile  perversion,  than  the  North  Caro 
lina  official  turned  aside  and  indited  a  tele 
gram  to  the  sheriff  of  the  county  in  Ten 
nessee  where  the  crime  had  been  committed. 
None  of  his  capacity  to  make  himself  un 
derstood  had  the  boy  lost  by  the  craft  of  the 
moonshiners  in  placing  him  where  he  \vould 
never  hear  an  English  word  and  was  likely 
to  forget  the  language.  A  very  coherent 
story  he  told  still  later  when  he  was  brought 
into  the  criminal  court  at  Shaftesville,  being 
the  capital  of  the  county  in  Tennessee  where 
the  deed  was  perpetrated,  and  confronted  by 

270 


THE    ORDEAL 


Copenny.  One  of  the  moonshiners,  arrested 
on  suspicion  of  complicity  with  the  murder, 
had  turned  State's  evidence  and  had  given 
testimony  as  to  the  details  of  the  plot  to  am 
bush  the  revenue  officer,  and  the  delegation 
of  Phineas  Copenny  and  two  others  to  exe 
cute  it.  Another  testified  that  he  had  after 
ward  heard  of  the  murderous  plan  and  of 
the  mistake  in  the  identity  of  the  victim; 
but  as  neither  of  these  parties  was  present 
at  the  catastrophe,  the  story  of  the  child 
was  relied  on  as  an  eye-witness  to  corrobo 
rate  this  proof.  The  admission  of  his  tes 
timony  was  hotly  contested  because  of  his 
tender  years,  despite  the  wide  inclusiveness 
of  the  statute,  and  its  inadequacy  would  pos 
sibly  have  resulted  in  a  reversal  of  the  case 
had  an  appeal  been  taken.  But  Phineas 
Copenny  made  no  motion  for  a  new  trial  and 
desired  no  appeal.  He  had  feared,  through 
out,  the  possible  capture  and  conclusive  tes- 

271 


THE    ORDEAL 


timony  of  Drann  and  Holvey,  and,  lest  a 
worse  thing  befall  him,  he  accepted  a  sen 
tence  of  a  long  term  in  the  penitentiary.  In 
view  of  the  turpitude  of  "  lying  in  wait," 
though  a  matter  of  inference  and  not  proof, 
he  doubted  the  saving  grace  of  that  anomaly 
of  the  Tennessee  law  that  in  order  to  con 
stitute  murder  in  the  first  degree  the  victim 
of  a  premeditated  slaughter  must  be  the  per 
son  intended  to  be  slain. 

There  was  scant  doubt  as  to  his  guilt 
in  the  minds  of  the  jury.  The  boy  singled 
out  Copenny  from  a  crowd  in  which  he  had 
been  placed  to  test  his  recognition  by  the  little 
witness.  He  remembered  the  man's  name, 
and  called  him  by  it.  He  gave  an  excited 
account  of  the  shooting,  although  this  was 
the  least  intelligible  part  of  his  testimony, 
for  he  often  interrupted  himself  to  exclaim, 
"Pop-gun — bang!"  disconnectedly,  as  the 
scene  renewed  itself  in  his  memory.  He  ex- 

272 


THE    ORDEAL 


plained  the  disappearance  of  Mr.  Briscoe 
and  the  mare  by  the  statement  that  "  Phinny 
runned  out — pop-gun — bang! — an'  bofe 
felled  over  the  bluff."  He  called  the  moon 
shiners'  cave  a  cellar,  however,  and  declared 
that  he  went  hunting  for  his  mamma  in  a 
boat,  and  the  counsel  for  the  defence  made 
the  most  of  such  puerilities  and  contradic 
tions.  But  the  child  was  very  explicit  con 
cerning  the  riving  from  him  of  his  coat  by 
Phineas  Copenny,  and  the  plan  to  throw  it 
over  the  bluff,  and  it  made  a  distinct  im 
pression  on  the  jury  when  he  added  that 
Copenny  took  his  hat  also — for  no  mention 
had  been  made  of  the  discovery  of  the  hat 
in  the  quagmire  in  the  valley — and  that 
Copenny  had  broken  the  elastic  that  held  it 
under  his  chin  and  this  snapped  his  cheek. 
He  could,  nevertheless,  give  no  account  how 
he  reached  the  Qualla  Boundary,  and  he 
broke  off  suddenly,  dimpling,  bright-eyed, 

18  273 


THE    ORDEAL 


and  roseate,  to  ask  the  judge  if  he  knew 
"  Polly  Hopkins." 

"  Her  is  so-o  pretty!  "  he  cried  out  in  ten 
der  regret. 

Mrs.  Royston  was  nettled  by  the  laughter 
elicited  by  this  query,  with  its  obvious  fer 
vor  of  enthusiasm,  for  she  divined  that  the 
merriment  of  the  crowd  was  charged  with 
ridicule  of  the  incongruous  object  of  his  cal 
low  adoration,  the  forlorn  old  fortune-teller, 
who  had  been  so  gentle  and  so  generous,  al 
beit  so  alien  to  the  civilization  of  the  pres 
ent  day.  Lillian  could  but  realize  that  the 
ministering  angel  is  of  no  time  or  nation 
ality,  and  the  transcendent  beauty  of  its 
apparition  may  well  be  a  matter  of  spiritual 
and  not  merely  visual  perception.  The  heart 
of  a  woman  is  no  undecipherable  palimpsest 
for  the  successive  register  of  fleeting  impres 
sions.  Here  was  written  in  indelible  script 
the  tenderest  thought  of  affection,  the  kind- 

274 


THE    ORDEAL 


est  charity,  and  all  the  soft  graces  of  foster 
ing  sentiment,  with  no  compensatory  values 
of  reciprocal  loyalty,  or  the  imposing  char 
acters  of  authority.  For  the  old  squaw  could 
not  even  understand  the  justice  of  the  dis 
pensation;  it  seemed  to  her  that  with  im 
punity  she  was  deserted,  denied;  her  plea 
was  a  jest  to  right  reason;  her  love,  in  which 
the  child  had  once  rejoiced,  was  superfluous, 
worthless,  now  that  he  had  come  to  his  own ; 
her  poor  hearth,  which  his  bright  infantile 
smiles  had  richly  illumined,  was  dark,  deso 
late  ;  the  inexorable  logic  of  law  and  worldly 
advantages  was  beyond  her  ken,  and  she 
felt  that  she  had  only  rescued  and  cherished 
the  little  waif  that  she  herself  might  be  lacer 
ated  by  grief  and  bereaved  for  his  sake,  and 
fain  to  beat  her  breast  and  to  heap  ashes  on 
her  head.  Poor,  poor,  "  pretty  Polly  Hop 
kins!" 

Cheering  news  of  her,  however,  now  and 

275 


THE    ORDEAL 


again  came  from  the  mountains.  The  noted 
oculist,  after  his  final  visit  to  her,  stopped 
over  in  Glaston  to  report  to  Mrs.  Royston 
the  complete  success  of  the  treatment,  know 
ing  the  gratification  the  details  would  afford. 
He  brought,  too,  the  intelligence  that 
she  was  free  of  her  old  torture  from  rheu 
matism,  which  had  been  of  the  muscular 
sort,  resulting  from  exposure  and  depriva 
tion,  and  had  yielded  to  the  comforts  of  the 
trig,  close  house  that  Mrs.  Royston  had 
built  for  her,  and  the  abundance  of  warm 
furnishings  and  nutritious  food,  a  degree  of 
luxury  indeed  which  was  hardly  known  else 
where  in  the  Boundary.  Her  prosperity  had 
evolved  the  equivocal  advantage  of  restoring 
her  prestige  as  a  sibyl,  and  she  had  entered 
upon  a  new  lease  of  the  practice  of  the  dark 
arts  of  fortune-telling  and  working  charms 
and  spells.  He  gave  a  humorous  account  of 
her  expressions  of  gratitude  to  him  for  the 

270 


THE    ORDEAL 


restoration  of  her  sight,  which  facetiousness 
Bayne,  who  chanced  to  be  present,  perceived 
did  not  add  to  Mrs.  Royston's  pleasure ;  for 
she  regarded  "  Polly  Hopkins  "  very  seri 
ously  indeed.  Before  the  physician  quitted 
the  "  Boundary,"  the  old  squaw  bestowred 
upon  him,  through  the  interpreter,  certain 
secret  magic  formulse  for  working  enchant 
ments  on  his  city  patients,  and  thereby  ef 
fecting  rapid  cures  and  filling  his  coffers. 
Knowing  of  Bayne's  hobby  for  linguistics, 
'the  oculist  jocularly  turned  these  archaic 
curios  over  to  him.  In  that  connection 
Bayne  recounted  that  after  the  child  had  de 
parted  with  his  mother  from  the  mountains, 
he  himself  being  detained  by  final  arrange 
ments  with  the  authorities,  his  interest  in  re 
searches  into  the  arcana  of  old  Cherokee  cus 
toms  had  been  revived  by  seeing  the  sibyl 
seated  on  the  ground,  swaying  and  wailing 
and  moaning,  and  casting  ashes  on  her  head 

277 


THE    ORDEAL 


as  if  making  her  mourning  for  the  dead.  At 
the  time  he  had  marked  the  parity  of  the 
observance  with  the  Hebraic  usage,  and  he 
intended  to  make  an  examination  into  the 
origin  of  the  curious  tradition  of  the  identity 
of  the  American  Indians  with  the  lost  tribes 
of  Israel. 

Train-time  forced  the  oculist  to  a  hasty 
leave-taking,  and  it  was  only  after  he  was 
gone  that  Bayne  noticed  the  evidence  of  re 
strained  emotion  in  Lillian's  face.  Bayne 
had  been  about  to  conclude  his  own  call, 
which  concerned  a  matter  of  business,  the 
claim  of  a  reward  which  he  considered  fraud 
ulent,  but  he  turned  at  the  door,  his  hat  in 
his  hand  and  came  back,  leaning  against  the 
mantel-piece  opposite  her.  He  noted  that 
the  tears  stood  deep  in  her  eyes. 

"  I  can't  bear  to  think  of  her  unhappi- 
ness,"  she  said,  "  when  I  consider  all  I  owe 
to  her." 

278 


THE    ORDEAL 


"  You  had  better  consider  what  you  owe 
to  me,"  Bayne  gayly  retorted,  seeking  to  ef 
fect  a  diversion. 

"  Oh,  you,  you!  But  for  you!  When  I 
think  of  what  you  have  done  for  Archie,  and 
for  me,  I  could  fall  down  at  your  feet  and 
worship  you!"  she  exclaimed  with  tearful 
fervor. 

"  Oh,  oh,  this  is  so  sudden!  "  he  cried,  with 
a  touch  of  his  old  whimsicality. 

"  Don't — don't  make  fun  of  me !  "  she 
expostulated. 

"Bless  you,  I  am  serious  indeed!  I  ex 
pected  something  like  this,  but  not  so  soon ; 
and,  in  fact,  I  expected  to  say  it  myself — 
but  I  could  not  have  done  it  better !  " 

"  Did  you  really  intend  to  say  it,  to  come 
back  to  me?  "  She  gazed  appealingly  at  him. 

"As  soon  as  we  had  time  for  such  trifles." 
He  would  not  enter  into  her  saddened  mood, 

"  But  one  thing  I  want  to  know:  did  you 

279 


THE    ORDEAL 


really  intend  it,  or  was  it  only  my  cruel  afflic 
tion  that  brought  you  back  to  me — motives 
of  sheer  humanity — because  no  one  else 
would  help  me,  because  they  thought  I  was 
the  prey  of  frenzied  fancies  to  believe  that 
Archie  still  lived?" 

Julian  was  silent  for  a  moment,  obviously 
hesitating.  Then  he  reluctantly  admitted, 
"  No,  I  should  never  have  come  back." 

She  threw  herself  back  in  the  chair  with 
a  little  pathetic  sigh.  He  looked  at  her  with 
a  smile  at  once  tender  and  whimsical.  She 
too  smiled  faintly,  then  took  up  the  theme 
anew. 

"  But,  Julian,"  she  persisted,  "  it  is  very 
painful  to  reflect  that  you  had  deliberately 
shut  me  out  of  your  heart  forever ;  that  when 
you  saw  me  again  you  had  no  impulse  to  re 
new  the  past.  Had  you  none,  really?  " 

The  temptation  was  strong  to  give  her  the 
reassurance  she  craved.  She  had  suffered 

280 


THE    ORDEAL 


so  bitterly  that  a  pang  of  merely  sentimental 
woe  seemed  a  gratuitous  cruelty.  Yet  he 
was  resolved  that  there  should  never  come 
the  shadow  of  falsehood  between  them.  He 
was  glad — joyous!  The  future  should  make 
brave  amends  for  the  past.  He  sought  to  cast 
off  the  bitter  retrospection  with  which  she 
had  invested  the  situation.  His  gay  laughter 
rang  out.  "  Madam,  I  will  not  deceive  you! 
I  intended  that  you  should  never  get  another 
shot  at  me;  but  circumstances  have  been  too 
much  for  me — and  I  have  ceased  to  strug 
gle  against  them." 


FIGOROUS  AND  SPIRITED  TALES 

The  Raid  of  the  Guerilla 

By  CHARLES  EGBERT  CRADDOCK 

With  illustrations  by  W.  Herbert  Dunton  and  Remington  Schuyler. 
I2mo.     Decorated  cloth,  $1.25  net.     Postpaid,  #1.37. 


distinguished  author  of  the  "Prophet  of  the 
Great  Smoky  Mountains"  has  here  given  us 
some  additional  and  admirable  stones  of  this  pictur 
esque  and  interesting  region  and  people,  full  of 
humanity,  racy  of  the  soil,  and  told  with  the  true  art 
and  sympathy  which  have  won  her  so  many  thousands 
of  readers. 

"  To  lovers  of  short  tales  of  action,  true  to  nature  and  graceful  in 
diction,  this  volume  of   Craddock's  will   especially  appeal." 

— Buffalo  Commercial. 

"The  literary  quality  is  far  above  the  present  standard." 

— New  York  Sun. 

"  Her  men  and  women,  too,  are  true  to  life — speech,  manner,  action." 

— Chicago  Inter-Ocean. 

"  Presented  with  the  true  artistic  idealization,  which  is  truer  than  the 
realism  of  actuality."  — New  York  Times. 


J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS  PHILADELPHIA 


Fate  Knocks  at  the  Door 

By  WILL  LEVINGTON  COMFORT 

Author  of  "  Routledge  Rides  Alone,"  "  She  Buildeth  Her  House,"  etc. 

Frontispiece  by  M.  Leone  Bracker 
Cloth,  $1.25  net.  Postpaid,  $1.37 

WHAT  LEADING  CRITICS  SAT: 

EDWIN  MARKHAM,  in  the  N.  Y.  American: 

<f  In  a  long  range  of  story  reading  I  have  never  chanced  upon  a 
nobler  concept  and  act  of  love  than  this  hero  (Andrew  Bedient) 
achieves  in  the  climax;  the  idealism  rises  at  last  to  the  height  of  Jean 
Valjean's  devotion  in  the  immortal  « Les  Miserables.'  ' 

EDWIN  L.  SHUMAN,  in  the  Chicago  Record-Herald: 

t(  It  confirms  the  large  promise  of  his  earlier  books.  This  is  the 
ripest  novel  he  has  yet  written — an  exceptionally  fine  and  strong 
book  of  a  man  faring  forth  on  the  supreme  adventure. 

"A  volume  full  of  stimulating  idealism.     Mr.  Comfort  is  a  thinker 
as  well  as  a  novelist,  and  ballasts  his  fiction  with  the  crystallized 
wisdom  of  essay  and  epigram.     .      .     .     There  is  not  a  hackneyed 
line  in  the  book,  and  the  style  is  as  distinctive  as  the  thought. " 
GEORGE  WHARTON  JAMES,  in  Oat  West: 

"  I  have  just  read  a  novel  that  has  a  sweep  and  power  as  great  as 
that  of  a  mighty  river.  It  deals  with  no  surface  indications  of  life, 
but  bores  down  into  life  itself,  its  principles,  its  fundamentals.  It 
is  a  real  love  story,  yet  as  different  from  the  ordinary  sensuous  or 
erotic  novel  as  heaven  is  from  hell.  Not  even  the  novel  masters, 
Scott,  Thackeray,  Eliot,  Dickens,  Balzac,  Hugo,  have  presented  so 
marvellously  high  a  conception  of  womanhood  and  the  divine  respon 
sibilities  and  glories  of  motherhood  as  has  this  man,  Will  Levington 
Comfort.  .  .  .  And  if  exalted  idealism,  put  in  concrete  form,  in 
a  flesh  and  blood  man  and  woman,  pictured  with  a  vigor  and  force 
that  make  them  as  real  as  Becky  Sharp,  Maggie  Tulliver,  Oliver 
Twist  or  Old  Mortality,  have  any  effect  upon  those  who  observe  and 
study  it,  then  Mr.  Comfort's  Andrew  Bedient  and  Beth  Truba  will 
'Raise  the  spiritual  temperature  of  the  race.'  .  .  .  Yet,  again  let 
me  assert,  that,  as  a  novel,  it  is  artistic,  interesting,  absorbing." 

J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS  PHILADELPHIA 


John  Reed  Scott's  Most  Dashing  and  Spirited  Romance 

THE  LAST  TRY 

By  JOHN  REED  SCOTT 

Author  of  "The  Colonel  of  the  Red  Huzzars,"  "The  Princess  Dehra,"  "Beatrix  of 
Clare,"  "The  Woman  in  Question,"  "The  Impostor,"  "In  Her  Own  Right,"  etc. 

Three  illustrations  in  color  by  Clarence  F.  Underwood. 
I2mo.     Cloth,  $1.25  net.     Postpaid,  $1.37. 


is  a  totally  independent  story,  complete  in  itself, 
A  but  in  effect  is  a  sequel  to  "The  Colonel  of  the  Red 
Huzzars"  and  "The  Princess  Dehra."  In  it  for  the  last 
time  the  Duke  of  Lotzen  tries  to  win  the  throne  of  his 
forefathers.  Not  openly  nor  in  kingly  fashion  does  he  go 
about  his  work,  but  sneakingly,  with  all  kinds  of  murderous 
designs  upon  the  life  of  the  rightful  ruler  of  Valeria.  Then, 
when  everything  else  has  proved  futile,  Lotzen  plays  his 
last  card — he  abducts  the  lovely  Dehra,  Queen  of  Valeria. 
How  Armand  meets  this  Last  Try  of  Lotzen — which  is 
played  out  to  a  finish  in  the  capital  of  the  Kingdom  with 
peace  and  quiet  on  every  side — how  he  and  Lotzen  fight  a 
duel  to  the  death  in  Ferida  Palace,  is  told  with  a  vividness, 
a  finish  and  a  dash,  which  Mr.  Scott  has  never  surpassed. 
It  is  the  last  of  the  trilogy  and,  we  think,  the  best. 

"Spirited,  graceful  and  absorbing  at  all  times — hats  off  to  John  Reed  Scott." 

—Boston  Globe. 

"A  novel  none  should  sidestep,  for  it  would  be  missing  the  best  one  of  the  season." 

—Grand  Rapids  Herald. 
"  Romantic,  ingenious  and  stirring  fiction." — N,  Y.  Times. 

"A  tale  of  adventure  that  never  slackens  its  headlong  pace.     It  is  a  lively  and 
altogether  satisfactory  piece  of  fiction." — New  York  Tribune. 


J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS  PHILADELPHIA 


BAFFLING  AND  BEWILDERING 

A  CHAIN  OF  EVIDENCE 

By  CAROLYN  WELLS 
Author  of  "The  Clue"  and  "The  Gold  Bag." 

Frontispiece  in  color  by  Gayle  Hoskins. 
I2mo.      Cloth,  $1.25  net.      Postpaid,  $1.37. 


ingenuity  of  that  original  investigator  of 
crimes,  Fleming  Stone,  was  never  so  brilliantly 
displayed  as  in  this  work — a  novel  full  of  human 
interest,  delightful  love  situations,  and  a  most  sur 
prising  climax. 

A  hot-tempered  old  gentleman  is  murdered  in  his 
apartments.  Suspicion  points  to  either  Jeanette  Pem 
broke,  his  niece,  or  Charlotte,  the  colored  servant. 
There  are  numerous  other  characters  who  become 
involved  in  this  mystery  romance,  among  whom  is  a 
young  bachelor  who  has  long  admired  Jeanette.  To 
all  their  efforts  to  solve  the  matter  it  only  becomes 
more  perplexing  until  Fleming  Stone  is  called  in, 
and  by  a  series  of  brilliant  deductions  discovers  the 
perpetrator  of  the  crime.  The  situations  are  all 
cleverly  handled  and  are  very  dramatic  and  ingenious. 
The  reader's  interest  is  kept  at  the  highest  point  of 
excitement,  and  the  denouement  is  an  agreeable  com 
bination  of  the  expected  and  unexpected. 

"  One  of  those  stories  which  once  begun  cannot  be  put  aside  until 
nnished."— Phila.  Press. 

"  Keeps  the  reader  guessing  until  the  last." — Phila.  Inquirer. 

J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS  PHILADELPHIA 


ONE  CONTINUOUS  JOY-RIDE 

From  the  Car  Behind 

By  ELEANOR  M.  INGRAM 

Three  illustrations  in  color  by  James  Montgomery  Flagg. 
I2mo.     Cloth,  $1.25  net.     Postpaid,  $1.37. 


THIS  is  one  continuous  joy  ride  from  the  trial  heat  of 
the  opening  chapters  to  the  exciting  race  at  the 
conclusion.  The  speed  never  slackens  and  one  turns  the 
pages  breathlessly.  The  story  keeps  pace  throughout 
with  the  fast-flying  machines  it  depicts,  whether  a  five- 
cylinder  racer  on  the  track,  the  huge  touring  car  on  the 
highway  or  amid  the  bustle  and  confusion  of  the  factory 
where  the  flyers  are  being  built.  Against  this  background 
of  drivers,  mechanicians,  gasoline,  and  grime,  a  beautiful 
love  story  unfolds  itself. 

"The  clean  wholesomeness  of  the  novel  commends  it  especially  to 
American  households  and  to  men  and  women  wearied  of  what  is 
strained  and  unnatural  in  fiction." — Richmond  Times-Dispatch. 

"  And  there's  no  moment,  from  the  start  to  finish,  when  the  happily 
ending  narrative  halts  for  a  deep  breath.  The  best  motor  romance  of 
the  season." — Chicago  Record-Herald. 

"  It  is  a  rattling  good  story,  which  has  its  exciting  moments,  includ 
ing  a  spirited  description  of  an  auto  race  on  the  Jericho  road  on  Long 
Island." — Brooklyn  Eagle. 

"  A  dramatic  succession  of  events  which  will  completely  absorb  any 
reader." — N.O.  Picayune. 


J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS  PHILADELPHIA 


A  NOVEL  OF  THE  REAL  WEST 

"ME— SMITH" 

By  CAROLINE  LOCKHART 
With  five  illustrations  by  Gayle  Hoskins 

I2mo.     Cloth,  $1.20  net. 


A/TISS  LOCKHART  is  a  true  daughter  of  the  West, 
"*•  her  father  being  a  large  ranch-owner  and  she  has 
had  much  experience  in  the  saddle  and  among  the  people 
who  figure  in  her  novel,  ffl  "  Smith  "  is  one  type  of  Western 
"  Bad  Man,"  an  unusually  powerful  and  appealing  char 
acter  who  grips  and  holds  the  reader  through  all  his 
deeds,  whether  good  or  bad.  Si  It  is  a  story  with  red 
blood  in  it.  There  is  the  cry  of  the  coyote,  the  deadly 
thirst  for  revenge  as  it  exists  in  the  wronged  Indian  to 
ward  the  white  man,  the  thrill  of  the  gaming  table,  and 
the  gentlenesss  of  pure,  true  love.  To  the  very  end  the 
tense  dramatism  of  the  tale  is  maintained  without  relax 
ation. 

"  Gripping,  vigorous  story." — Chicago  Record-Herald. 
"This  is  a  real  novel,  a  big  novel." — Indianapolis  News. 

"  Not  since  the  publication  of  '  The  Virginian '  has  so  powerful  a 
cowboy  story  been  told." — Philadelphia  Public  Ledger. 

"  A  remarkable  book  in  its  strength  of  portrayal  and  its  directness 
of  development.  It  cannot  be  read  without  being  remembered." — The 
World  To-Day. 

J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS  PHILADELPHIA 


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